Jesus and religion

The interwebs have exploded over the video I have included below. And by exploded I mean over 3 millions hits on YouTube as of 10:45 PM Thursday night. Considering I've been on here for nearly three years and barely topped 12,000 hits (but who's counting), it's pretty incredible how popular this video has become in roughly 48 hours. And in all honesty, if this is the material people are drinking up over the internet I am in full support.

If I could make one point of critique it would be saying that Jesus and religion are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Christianity is a religion for it upholds a set beliefs which frame a particular worldview (my apologetics class at work right there). However, it is unlike any other religion because God is the author. Additionally, Christianity (as the poem rightly expresses) is the story of God seeking out man when religion focuses on how man can find God. Again the poem is clear that Jesus did everything in order to bring man to God. There is nothing left for man to achieve and strive for in order to earn God's favor and love. Jesus accomplished that for us on the cross when He shouted It is finished!

This is where I greatly appreciate the poem. For while Christianity is a religion entirely different from all the others, Christians often live life as though they are no different from every other religion: trying to earn God through means of good works and correct doctrine. Then they demand the same from everyone else. And I believe this is the heart attitude this poem is battling against. It is the same heart attitude of the Pharisees whom Jesus so strongly opposed.

If grace is water, then the church should be an ocean.
It's not a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the broken


At first this sounds like a cheesy rhyme to move the poem along. However, it's the ever-present reality facing our churches. We tend to be deserts more than oceans of God's grace. And it's because we refuse to give up our sinful desire to somehow merit God's grace. We don't extend grace, because, more often than not, we fail to love God's grace. It hasn't consumed us to the point where it becomes the means by which we operate. I love how Jefferson's poem maligned again and again the facade of perfection Christians like to display.

I know this facade in my own life. I want people to think I have it all together. I want to be strong and capable. That way people will "undoubtedly" know I am a Christian. I dare not show any of my weaknesses otherwise people might find out I am human. But this neglects the fact that I am completely human and, therefore, consumed by weakness. And my weaknesses are what make God's grace all the more amazing.

His grace covers over all my weaknesses. His grace is extended despite my weakness. His grace allows me, an utterly broken person, to minister through my weakness. His grace allows others, just as broken as me, to minister to me. As a Christian, I am not saved because I am strong. I am saved because I am exhaustively weak. If I were strong, God's grace would have no place in my life. But because I am weak, God's grace is what saves and sustains me each and every moment of each and every day.

For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ~John 1:16

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ~Ephesians 2:8-9