While serving as a Navy Chaplain for 25 years (I know, some of you are saying, “there he goes again….”) I would often have Sailors and Marines come in to talk about a variety of personal problems. Invariably the discussion would come around to their faith or lack thereof. Sometimes the servicemember would say something like, “I don’t know Chaplain, but I’m not very religious.” I would often respond with, “Guess what, I am too.” That would really confuse them. They couldn’t understand how a minister….a Chaplain….could not be religious. And then I would go on and explain why that was true, and what I meant by that statement.
You see, Christianity was never meant to be a religion. Jesus didn’t come to start another religion. In fact He came to end religion. And the religion He came to abolish is often described in the Gospels. For instance, if you go to the Gospel of Matthew and read chapters 11 and 12 you will see Jesus opposing the existing religion of His day….Judaism. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus makes this clear when he says...
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy; and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:28-30)
Now many people mistakenly take this out of context and think that this Jesus is talking about
relieving us of our day to day burdens of our work, our responsibilities, and the tough issues
that we often face. (In fact, Jesus does support us in those kinds of things and there are plenty
of other scriptures that attest to that). But this passage is not one of them.
Here He is talking about freeing us from the futility of religion and offering us something much
better – a real relationship with God. Through that relationship we can rest. We can learn
what grace really is. We can live freely and lightly.
If you are exhausted from trying hard to earn something from God, you need to know that
there’s a better way. Jesus says that you can get away with Him and recover your life. He says
you can not only have eternal life, but abundant life as well. (John 10:10)
He’s saying: “Come to me! Let’s get rid of this religious mentality. I’m going to show you how
to really live!”
Grace and Peace, Pastor Frank
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