The stories of Christmas & Easter go together. It’s hard to celebrate one without thinking of the other. Jesus was born to solve the relationship problem that we all have with our Creator, God. Sin has separated us from everything that God wants for us and Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection has made it possible to fix that relationship. When Jesus died on the cross the curtain between the outer courts and the Holy of Holies, the thing that separated the common person from entering into the very presence of God, was torn in two. Through Christ’s death we now have access to God, and for those who have accepted this gift God offers through Christ, we can now enter into that presence with boldness and confidence. No need for a priest or any other intermediary to go to God.
Yet I find that many Christians tend to get out their needle and thread and sew the curtain back together. Churches or denominations put barriers back between man and God that He never intended to be there. “You can worship with us only if you worship our way. You can join our church only if you leave your sin at home and never bring it up here. You need to dress a certain way, act a certain way, look a certain way, and talk a certain way. You can …” and the list goes on and on. It’s amazing the meaningless and insignificant criteria we put on people in order to follow God.
Hugh Halter in his book Sacrilege paints an interesting story of Jesus doing away with religion and clearing the way to God .
“If I were a filmmaker I would create a scene where Jesus drives a huge bulldozer up the hill toward the temple and rips down every wall while beeping his huge horn at all the priests and Levites, who would be angrily waving their hands at him. Ignoring them, he’d keep on cutting a huge pathway all the way up to the front door of the holy place. All the peasants would be squinting to look through the plume of dust and rubble as they winessed Jesus put the dozer into second gear, ram up the huge stairs, and blast through the massive wooden doors. And as the high priest ran for his life, Jesus would haul it into the place the people had only dreamed of seeing–the presence of God.
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Although the religious barriers would have been removed, the pure in heart, in my imaginary scene, would be standing motionless–mouths open, eyes as big as Frisbees, wondering what this now means for them. Then Jesus, the new King and High Priest, would climb off the John Deere, take his goggles off, run back down the hill, and grab little kids by the hands. He’d put his arm around the prostitutes; he’d pick the beggars up off the ground and summon every person he could find. ‘Come on, you who have been trying to find the real God. Follow me.’ Picture all those people sheepishly but gratefully walking with Jesus. These people are the pure in heart.
Who’s not the pure in heart? All the people who were ticked that Jesus just destroyed their religious constructs, who liked the status quo, who enjoyed creating and propping up their sanctimonious spiritual walls.
Then he hands them a key–the key to the tractor that bears the label ‘ministry of reconciliation.’ People of Jesus, peasants of reconciliation, are those who no longer look at a person’s gender, age, color, or attire. They don’t care about their denominational affiliation, church background, or sinful behavior. The ministry of reconciling requires that we stop looking at the cover of the book and see the painful storied pages of each person’s life as a whole, understanding that their behavior is only the symptom of a sin-ravaged world. As we transcend judgment with understanding and trust in God’s ability to know a person’s heart, we will be living out our calling as God’s people. (Sacrilege 157-58)”
What are you doing to tear down the walls that man has built up so that people can find God?