Good Friday

I don’t know if you are like me, but I like gifts…I just don’t like receiving them. I know that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but let me explain.

Growing up, my parents loved to take us out to eat. They still do. They were, and continue to be, very generous to us in this way. However, there was always an unspoken rule. Never order dessert. I confess that I don’t know how I understood this rule, because my parents never made a big deal of it. They never sat us down and instructed us that this was the rule; it just somehow was the rule for me growing up. I think it is because a meal is something that I am supposed to have for my nourishment. A dessert is just entertainment for the taste buds. I just couldn’t ask my Dad to pay for that.

By extension of the dessert principle, I have learned, wrongly I might add, that receiving gifts of any kind from others is undesirable. Gifts are additive; they are unnecessary. Life goes on without them. Gifts are little pleasures given to me that should have the effect of softening my heart and connect me to the giver who cares about me, but it is never a first response. However, a soft heart and a connection to the giver don’t come easy for me. I always have to work toward these responses.

To me, receiving a gift is an act of submission. Receiving a gift from someone is tantamount to acknowledging I don’t deserve the gift. Someone sacrificed his/her time, talent and/or money to give the gift to me. Gift receiving heightens my awareness to my shortcomings and inabilities. I know that’s messed up. I should rejoice in the giver and the gift, but that is a learned process for me not a natural response.

And for this reason, Good Friday is always a difficult day for me. I look for ways to make it a normal day, but it never winds up that way. Every year it is difficult for me to receive the gift of sacrifice that comes from Jesus’ obedience to death on the cross. It is an act of submission for me. If I yield to it, Good Friday trains my heart to become soft again. Engaging the story of the crucifixion connects me again to the ultimate gift of Jesus sacrificing his life for mine. And by doing so, Jesus truly gives me something that I don’t deserve. As a result of this sacrificial gift, I am connected to Jesus in new ways as I understand his care for me.

Today, I pray that you would join me in submitting to the gift of Good Friday. Pray with me that our hearts would be softened and that our connection to Jesus would grow as we learn again about his deep care for us. So today my prayer is simply, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.”