If I had a dollar for every person I’ve encountered that has essentially summed up what it means to be a Christian by something similar to these words, I would have a lot of dollars.
The reason I start with this misconception is because everything that will follow is more or less meaningless unless we can clear up this point and everything else will depend upon what will come in the next page or two being true or you can do away with Christianity altogether.
I can certainly see how people outside of the Christian religion and even those exploring it might think that being a Christian is all about doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things. Many churches are certainly guilty of furthering this and often times conveying that morals and ethics are more important than people and what’s at the heart of Biblical Christianity.
It seems that the belief that Christianity is all about following a list of rules is a direct result of people not correctly understanding who Jesus is and what He came to do. Many people throughout history, even well meaning Christians, have believed that Jesus came to be a moral example that we should try to imitate. He gives us rules and guidelines by which we should live, we follow them.
This view of Jesus, however, is wrong. You can’t get more than a chapter into the Gospel of Mark without realizing that Jesus had a much different agenda than this.
Others perhaps believe that Jesus was simply crazy, or a liar. Even many of the Jews during Jesus’ time believed this. Someone claiming to be not just a prophet but actually divine, actually God, had gone completely mad. The Jews were expecting a Messiah, but that didn’t mean someone claiming to be God.
But something happened that would put an end to the debate and validate every claim that Jesus had ever made about Himself, and this is what Christianity is all about.
A hill on the outskirts of town, a cross, and an empty tomb.
Christianity centers on an historical event – the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That people were unable to follow the rules wasn’t really the problem. Many people in Jesus’ day were great at following rules. They were so good, in fact, that they thought they would add some extra rules that weren’t even in the Bible. Yet it’s these very people, the Pharisees, that Jesus often rails against during his short ministry, not the rule-breaking Pagans.
Many Jews followed the rules as closely as possible, yet they missed the whole point.
The Jews and the country of Israel were supposed to bring peace and justice, renewal and the coming of God’s Kingdom, all of which would only be possible through a community that was deeply in love with their God.
This didn’t happen, so God decided to intervene in a way that no one would have ever imagined.
God, in the form of a man, Jesus Christ, came down to us, not so that we might imitate his every move and strive for perfection, but to reveal what the Father’s character, coming Kingdom, and future looked like. He came to renew and restore all things, including humans, both physically and in their relationship to the Father.
Jesus’ ministry and His death on the Cross demonstrated all of this. The poor, lame, and lost were shown love and justice in a way that Israel was supposed to do, and Jesus humbled Himself and allowed Himself to be crucified, bearing on His shoulders the weight of the world’s sin so that we would not have to bear it ourselves.
Yet all men die. What was different about this one was that, three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, substantiating His claim to be God and defeating death forever.
And when Jesus was resurrected, something which no one, even his closest followers would have foreseen happening in the way that it did, God’s Heavenly sphere and our Earthly, human sphere intersected for the first time, and once and for all. With the resurrection came God’s inauguration of His coming Kingdom where there would be peace, justice, love, joy, and the absence of everything evil.
I’ll leave you with how scholar N.T. Wright sums up what happened on the Cross:
The pain and tears of all the years were met together on Calvary. The sorrow of heaven joined with the anguish of earth; the forgiving love stored up in God’s future was poured out into the present; the voices that echo in a million human hearts, crying for justice, longing for spirituality, eager for relationship, yearning for beauty, drew themselves together into a final scream of desolation.
The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews, the bearer of Israel’s destiny, the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns.
Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter. (Wright, Simply Christian)
-CK
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“So What!?”
If this is new to you, maybe you’re wondering where to go from here. The point is that in some ways, Christianity isn’t about following rules or even a Man at all, but about letting that man, Jesus, guide our lives.
Through faith in Jesus and what He’s accomplished on the Cross, both in forgiving our sins and beginning to restore the whole world, including our relationships with the Father, we can know God in an intimate way, similar to how a husband knows his wife. In the context of that relationship, we allow God to lead and direct our lives in such a way that will continue to further the coming of God’s Kingdom, bringing peace, justice, beauty and love.
Watch for the next blog as I explore the misconception that “getting into Heaven” is about being a good person. I encourage you to dialogue with me and others about anything you might agree, disagree, or have questions or comments about.
Recommended reading –
Book: The King’s Cross, Timothy Keller
Scripture: Matthew 9:1-13, Colossians 1:15-23
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