As we are in the Easter week, there are a lot of activities around the churches and on TV. There are dinners and ceremonies, super early services and special events. All of this is great, but for some it can be overwhelming. I always think of the double dutch jump rope activity ... you can just see that person waiting and watching; trying to time their entry just right so they don't trip on those ropes!

Religion can often feel like entering that double dutch jump rope. For many, there are so many words, activities, and traditions that it is all too easy to feel like they don't belong. For every person who jumps in with both feet, there is likely at least one other person who shrugs and walks away. The reality is that religion is complicated because we have made it complicated. There are so many denominations, so many events, and so much terminology. When you are in that double dutch jump rope, it seems easy. But for all too many, it is too tough to even try.

The fact is that religion is complicated, but faith is simple. In many instances we make Christianity really hard. As humans, we have taken the truth in the Bible, and twisted it up with our small minds into all sorts of machinations. Don't get me wrong, it is a deep subject and anything life altering is, by definition, a big thing. But the Bible purposely lays out a very simple way for us to engage God.

If you are finding yourself lost in the traditions of the week, just go back to the basics of faith. The Bible is about faith, not traditions. In fact, much of the New Testament is about reversing course, to focus on faith over traditions and laws. If you feel overwhelmed this week, or you are interested but confused, here is what you want to focus on:

There is a God ... he designed everything and has set a moral compass inside man so that we can comprehend a natural order including right and wrong.
God is accessible to us all ... no middle man is necessary. We pray to God directly, he listens, and, as so many Christians can attest, he is a powerful guide to our lives.
As humans we are sinners. This means that we do wrong, and in some instances we do good but we make the good things that we do the most important things in our lives. God wants and deserves to be number 1 in our lives ... when we make church activities number 1, then we are sinning.
God will one day judge all humans, and on our own we really don't stand a chance. God understood that if he were to judge us on our own actions, there wouldn't be one person who would pass the test.
God sent Jesus to Earth to be a sacrifice ... to take the punishment for our sins. All sin for all eternity was made whole, or paid for, by the death of God's son. The Bible is full of eye witness accounts. We are called to believe, that is the only price we must pay.
Jesus died, but then came back alive to demonstrate his defeat of death and the fact that Christians will not die, but will also defeat death. Over 500 people saw Jesus after he had died and came back to life. The Bible is full of eye witness accounts that are corroborated in secular texts.
Once we understand that we are designed by a God, that we are flawed, but that God has sacrificed his son for us, it is more clear what Christianity is all about, and how we should be as Christians. When we accept this, then we accept the people that we are designed to become.
We are called to be humble and selfless. God deserves this behavior from us, even if he did not provide us a path to Heaven. We don't act this way because we received this path to Heaven, we act this way because God deserves it.
All of this is difficult and really impossible on our own. With a relationship with God, we can accept and be the people we are designed to be. Comprehension of what has transpired on the cross leads us to the ability to accept and be.
If we have traditions but no comprehension, we are lost and, somewhere deep inside, we know it.