The Sunday Mail
Pst Timothy Reynolds
My Perspective
IF I was inventing a religion, it would look nothing like Christianity.
I would want a hero who looked successful. I would want him handsome, popular, wealthy (perhaps after starting off poor – it looks better that way) and with a series of victories over his enemies to make him look more heroic. I would want him to have a magnetic personality – to have people follow him in their droves and never leave him.
He would be married to a beautiful woman and have a number of high-achieving children to carry on his legacy after his many decades of leadership and influence.
In fact if I were going to invent a religion it would look almost the opposite of Christianity. Consider the life and death of its key figure Jesus – a terrible choice for a hero figure:
He was born out of wedlock – a disgraceful situation
He was so poor he couldn’t even afford a house or his own grave
He grew up in a part of the country (Galilee) which had the reputation of being where the dumb people lived
He wasn’t physically attractive
He was killed by his own people after being betrayed by one of his closest followers
Apart from the one who betrayed him, his other 11 closest followers all deserted him in his greatest time of need.
Shortly before he died, he begged not to have to go through with it
All his closest original followers (the disciples) were either killed, committed suicide (Judas Iscariot, the betrayer), or died in exile (John)
The most famous early Christian – Paul the Apostle – was abandoned by almost all his friends and died – penniless – at the hands of a Roman executioner
It doesn’t get much more appealing when you read some of the things Jesus said during his (pitifully short) ministry of three years:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). What, no vengeance? No justice? No getting even?
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Matthew 22:21). So we have to keep paying taxes to the murderous Roman occupiers?
“Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.” (1 John 3:13)
“ . . . a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God” (John 16:2). Which of course is exactly what happened to Jesus himself.
“In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33)
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” (John 15:18)
“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20) – told to a would-be follower as a warning that if he followed Jesus that he would have no money.
“ . . . when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (John 21:18)
That last one is the worst of the lot. It was Jesus telling Peter that he would be crucified – tortured to death by being nailed to two planks of wood and left to slowly suffocate to death over a period of days. Paul the Apostle described the experiences of himself and his fellow Jesus-followers like this:
“ . . . troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger…through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:4-10)
How are you doing so far? Does Christianity look good to you yet? Not to me – not based on that evidence. It’s pretty much a test case in how not to invent a popular religion.
Jesus doesn’t promise good health and a long life (he was dead at 33). Jesus doesn’t promise promotions (he had no seniority, no status). Jesus doesn’t promise popularity (everyone abandoned him). Jesus doesn’t promise wealth (he was penniless). Jesus doesn’t promise an easy life (in fact he pretty much guarantees the opposite).
Our problem is, those are the very things that many of us are looking for, and because we want those things, if we believe in God at all it’s tempting to think it’s his job to give us those things.
That’s why, in their heads many people have invented a religion. They have chosen to believe that Jesus promised that we can have whatever we want if only we will do the right thing, or donate enough money, or listen to the right preacher, or behave well enough, or dress the right way, or say the right things, or go to the right church, or pray the right prayer, or experience the right experiences so that God will decide to give us what we really want.
The tragedy is that all these things that we want in this religion that we have invented, are nowhere near as glorious as what God wants to give us. We are scrambling around trying to do enough for God that he will take us to the promised land of health, wealth and happiness.
Meanwhile God is offering us something far greater: Himself, and offering it free of charge. You see the problem is not that we want too much, but that we are satisfied with too little. God wants to give us an eternal relationship with him that will bring us true contentment, true joy, true purpose and true love, while we pray to the God we have invented who just wants to give us sex, money and a good pension . . . and only if we are good enough.
The tragedy is that there are countless millions of people around the world caught in that lie, that prison of “be better and hope for the best” . . . in that religion they have invented. They use God’s name but they don’t know God.
The glory is that God wants us to know him. He tells us in the words of Jesus, of his disciples and of the apostles, to “Repent and believe”. Not, “repent and believe and then be good enough,” because we can never be good enough. But ask God to forgive you for your sinful nature, and trust him that because Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sin, that God really has forgiven your sin.
Then you won’t want to sin, you will want to obey God. But all along you will know that you are forgiven, secure, safe with God, and that however tough life gets, however many things go against you, however little money you may have and whatever your struggles with ill-health, that you are richer than everyone who does not have God.
And that religion – true religion – is infinitely better than anything I could ever invent.
Pastor Paul Timothy Reynolds of the First Baptist Church Cayman Islands can be reached at [email protected]
