My dad was a preacher’s kid who was often dangled over the flames of Hell, yet he was able to escape the guilt imposed upon him during his upbringing and live a happy and fulfilled life.
My mom on the other hand, being raised in the same type of religious environment as my dad, became obsessed in her later years with her Christian religion to the point of serious mental and physical illness. It was absolutely heart wrenching to witness.
One of the things my mom struggled with the most was guilt. She never felt as if she was pleasing God, and she believed that her sufferings were God’s way of putting her in the fire and perfecting her. She was in perpetual torment until the day she died.
I tried to help, but my words fell on deaf ears. She was unreachable.
With the strong emphasis on the sinful nature of humans, it is no mystery that the Christian religion generates guilt.
Their message is that people are born wicked sinners and need to come to Jesus to be cleansed of their sin. Without it, they are doomed to eternal Hell.
Yeshua did not teach that, he used a child as the example of innocence when he taught his disciples, “unless you become like one of these little ones, you will not enter into the kingdom of God.”
His teachings were refreshingly different than the teachings of religion.
Religion perpetuates guilt, and guilt is the major contributor to anxiety and depression. Currently, there are ten million Americans suffering with these mental disorders.
When I was a student nurse doing a clinical rotation in the psychiatric ward, I remember a doctor saying, “see all these people?” “They are all here for one underlying reason, the feeling of guilt.”
What the Christian religion is doing to humanity today is the same thing that the religion that Christ opposed was doing to the Jewish citizens in the first century.
Unlike these religions, Jesus did not focus on the sins of humanity. He only addressed one sin during his short time on Earth.
Christ addressed the sin of believing and teaching that their blood sacrificial religion was the gateway to God, when it was not.
First of all, let’s take a few steps back, and ask ourselves what is the burden of any religion?
Isn’t it to proclaim that they have found the true way to an actual God or Nirvana?
No man has ever seen God, so the burden of proof is on the individual or individuals to convince others that they know that this invisible substance, called God, even exists.
Those are the ones who start religions. They get people to “buy in” to their “proof.”
Christ was a spiritual teacher and he was not trying to start a movement or religion. He was helping the people that religion had horribly damaged, and calling out the religious leaders for their error.
While pouring the healing ointment upon the wounded citizens, Christ addressed the religious leaders and let them know that they did not represent the true nature of God.
The Jewish religious leaders of the first century believed that they represented Yahweh, the God of Moses. They upheld their laws with rigidity and were apathetic and, actually sadistic, placing burdens of horrible punishment and guilt upon the people.
Christ showed up and challenged the religious leaders with his words and acts of mercy and compassion toward the people, saying, “this is the true nature of God.”
Christ did not need to start a religion to try and persuade people that there is a true God, his actions testified that God is real.
There was a blatant difference between the religious leaders and Christ.
Yeshua’s message was refreshingly different. It was, “good news, the kingdom of God is at hand or readily available to you.”
The good news was that they didn’t have to go to the temple and sacrifice to get right with God.
All the things that people sought through religion, like the relieving of guilt, the sensing of peace, and the feeling of a closeness with God was right there and available without measure, being handed out by Yeshua.
Christ was able to unlock the gateway to the spiritual kingdom of God, and bring the invisible blessings of a loving Father into the natural world and manifest them in order to relieve human suffering.
Although Yeshua required his disciples to practice upmost integrity and pureness of thought, Christ NEVER focused on the sin of those around him.
He simply healed them and relieved their physical illnesses, their mental torments, and their guilt. In fact, he came under fire from the religious leaders for telling some that their sins were forgiven.
People thronged Yeshua because they were spiritually parched from the religion that had taken over their culture, and he brought spiritual fountains of living water.
A great example of how the spirit of religion imposed guilt can be seen with lepers. If you were a leper in the first century Jewish Palestine, you were doomed.
Leprosy is caused by a slow growing bacterium that eats away at the skin and then moves deeper to destroy the nerves.
It is a horrible disease, and adding to the suffering in the first century was the guilt attached to it.
According to the laws of Moses, anyone who got leprosy had transgressed the laws and was stricken with the disease by God. Those people were to be put out and were to be completely isolated from the group.
Imagine the scenario. You contacted this horrifying disease, you are now separated from your family, your religious community, and you are told that God did this to you because you had sinned.
In addition, you can’t even come to the temple with an animal to sacrifice, to get whatever sin remitted that you can think of that might have caused it.
I can’t even begin to imagine the physical and mental torment that these people endured because of religion.
Thankfully, Yeshua did not go by their rules and he had contact with the lepers and performed healings.
I can see why the man in Mark chapter 1 didn’t follow the directions of Christ to go offer the sacrifices of Moses for his healing as a testimony to the religious leaders.
The man probably wanted nothing more to do with their religion after what he had experienced. Instead, he went around broadcasting the great news.
Which unfortunately, made it more difficult for Christ. Yeshua did not need more followers.
Christ needed the religious leaders to see that he was the promised one from God, so that they could give up their evil practices and follow his example to heal the people from the damage caused by religion.
Christ truly was the great physician.
And no, they did not honor and listen to him. They murdered him because of jealousy, and out of the ashes, a religion sprung up in honor of his name.
A religion that, unlike Christ, focuses on the sin of mankind; thus, perpetuating guilt.
All the while, they ignore the true sin, the lie of claiming to be the gateway to God when they are not.