Day 6: True Religion
Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Mark 2:27-28
What makes someone religious?
An affiliation with either a church or chapel?
Being baptised as a baby?
Keeping certain traditions, or festivals, like lent perhaps?
Media today might portray a religious person as a goody-two-shoes or an evil nut job, or anywhere in between. Google reckons there are 4200 religions. People around us might consider themselves religious without having been to a place of worship in years, while others might think they’re not religious, but go to church every week.
All a bit confusing, eh? In today’s passage, we read about religious confusion too.
People wondered why Jesus’ disciples didn’t fast. Pharisees told Jesus off for his disciples picking grain to eat on a Sabbath. Then when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, they began plotting his death.
The Pharisees were THE religious folk of the day. Their religion meant working hard to keep rules. Their basis was the law God had given Moses, but they had added their own extras just to be safe. On Sabbaths, for example, they were to rest, so to be extra safe they made a rule that they weren’t to walk more than 1999 steps! I’m not sure how they counted, maybe some early versions of Fitbits?
So, when Jesus came along and appeared to be breaking these rules, they were outraged. They loved to do the right thing, but Jesus was quick to let them know they were in the wrong.
God had given his people laws to show them what it looked like to trust him. They weren’t an end in themselves. Fasting and keeping the Sabbath were to be a blessing, rather than a duty. Doing the right thing is not what true religion is about. So, Jesus rebuked these folk and showed that instead they should find joy, rest and life in him.
Even as Christians, we can be tempted to think that we need to do certain things to be acceptable to God. We might feel we need to tick all the Christian boxes to feel like we’re ‘doing the right thing.’ Maybe we want to prove ourselves to God, or other people, or even ourselves. Maybe we want to feel we’ve accomplished something, or maybe we feel guilt tripped to act.
But true religion is knowing Jesus.
Every other religion in the world is about working towards a god, whatever that might mean. But true religion is about accepting the gift of good news in Jesus.
We could never do enough of the right thing. We could never live in perfect obedience. But Jesus did, and he died and rose so that his people could know true joy, true rest, and true life. True religion is accepting the good news that Jesus has done the work to restore us to God.
When we know and accept this good news, we can then use good gifts like fasting, or sabbaths, to enjoy Jesus by living for him. When we’ve seen the amazing love and grace of Jesus, we can then find joy by devoting ourselves to obeying him.
True religion is knowing Jesus and living for him.
Passage for today: Mark 2:18-3:6
A thought to remember: True religion is knowing Jesus and living for him.
A question to ask: How are you showing that you live for Jesus today?
A song to sing: Cornerstone