The Death of Religion by John Monday

This is the second part of a piece written on our common humanity that was posted on 10/12/13.

Christianity can be distilled into two great unifying concepts.  One is that we are all broken images of God.  God made us in his image, we rejected him and went our own way, and as a result we are the shattered remains of God’s love, with no capacity to save ourselves.  As broken creatures, we are all devoid of the right or ability to judge each other.  As images of God, we can all reflect some broken portion of his grace, mercy, and love into the corner of the world where he has placed us.

The second great unifying concept is that God alone can repair the damage that we have done.  Since the moment we rejected God, we’ve been like petulant children stomping our feet before the throne of the universe, childishly demanding that we don’t need help, that we can do it ourselves.  And like a patient father, God guides us even in our rebellion, teaching us through his gentle love in the midst of our tantrums, protecting us from the sure consequence of our self-destructive choices and behavior, planning and preparing for the day we turn toward him - the only place where we will find peace, redemption, and restoration.

Human history can be viewed as that great span when God allows us to try our own way, to seek our own path, to repair that which we’ve broken, so that we might bear witness to our own inability. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is filled with stories of God reaching out to people and people believing that they knew better.  Time after time, our primal ancestors altered his plan, added to his plan, or just rejected his plan.  Finally, God gave them, and us, ten simple rules for life and said, “If you can just follow these, everything will be okay.”

Worship God
Don’t put God in a box 
Take your relationship with God seriously
God has set aside time for you
Respect your parents
Don’t murder
Don’t cheat on your spouse
Don’t steal
Don’t lie
Don’t be jealous 

And before God finished communicating his law of love, we had broken them all; yet we still didn’t get it.  God didn’t give us this law so that we could perfect ourselves with it.  He gave it so that we might have a mirror and be humbled by our need. So we continued down our path of self-righteousness, of self-destruction, wielding a new weapon that we created from his law of love.  Religion.

We demanded of others that they keep the law which we could not.  We altered the law, added to the law, divided the law, multiplied the law, interpreted the law, sharpened our spears of persecution with the law, and inflicted the law of religion mercilessly until there was none of God’s love left in it.

And in the fullness of time, while we were still sinners, mired and bogged down in our depravity, caught up in our corruption of his great law, the God of love took on the form of his broken creation that we might see, feel, and be healed by his grace . . . and the second great unifying concept of humanity became flesh. Jesus.

Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves.  He earned the salvation that we could not earn, kept the law that we could not keep, and paid the penalty that we could not pay so that we might be redeemed and reconciled to a holy and loving God and that we might live in community with each other and with the author of creation.  He fixed the relationship that each of us has broken.  

And what must we do to achieve this great reward?

While Jesus was walking with his disciples, he began to inquire of them, “Who do people say that I am?”  They reported that some said he was Elijah, some said John the Baptist, some said another prophet.  Then Jesus asked the most poignant question in all eternity . . .  “Who do you say that I am?”  And Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus then told Peter that this one great truth, this single acknowledgement, the confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, was the single truth upon which eternity would be built.  All we can do is surrender and fall helpless into his arms.

Before Jesus returned to the Father, he prayed for his disciples, and he prayed for you and me.  He prayed that his followers would be united - a prayer that many religionists and all the powers of evil have conspired to thwart for 2000 years.  And their tactics remain the same.  They alter God’s love, add to God’s love, divide God’s love, interpret God’s love, sharpen their spears of persecution, and inflict religion mercilessly until there is none of God’s love left in it.  

They demand that we separate from others who love and profess Jesus if they don’t believe exactly as they do.  They declare that Jesus is good, but we must do something more.  They demand that theirs is the only way, and that God has given them greater knowledge, more 
light. 

But when confronted with such dangerous distortions of God’s love, you’ll know better.  Jesus asks each of us, “Who do you say that I am?”  If your answer is, “You are the Messiah . . . my Messiah . . . the Son of the living God,” then you’re home, one with every believer, and nothing can ever separate you from the love of God. 

John Monday