Dispense with Religion

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

DISPENSE WITH RELIGION

John 19:31-37

31 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. 33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken,"   37 and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."  

NIV

Once again we see the cruelty of religious righteousness or rather the hypocrisy of self-righteousness. It was not good enough they had made sure Jesus was crucified, now because they were getting ready for some religious Godly thing, they wanted to make sure the two thieves were dead and so taken down before they did their acts of religion. Crucifixion was death by suffocation, hanging by the arms causing the diaphragm to fail in its ability to bring air into the lungs. The cruelty of this type of execution was in those hanging could try to find some relief by lifting their bodies up slightly by pushing up on their feet against a little stand of sorts; this was on purpose so that their pain would last longer. But because of the Jews had to be religious they wanted the Romans to break their legs, so they would die sooner. What men do in the name of religion can be so evil, so filled with humanity, it must make God sad. Yet we also see the truth about Jesus being divine. It was spoken hundreds of years before this event about his bones not being broken and his side being pierced. Although the agony of the two others crucified along with Jesus were still alive, suffering, Jesus had purposefully given up his spirit, something only the divine Son of God could do. What can we learn from this? The testimony of John is true, Jesus was the Messiah, he was God incarnate, and he was the divine one. Yet we also can see the failure of religion. These Jews did not have a relationship with God, they only had religion, and they had their twisted views of the law. They had developed so many rules and regulations but failed to have a meaningful relationship with God. We need to that having a meaningful relationship with God is the only form of true worship. All the rules, all the doctrines, all the denominationalism, all the forms of lists containing do’s and don’ts are meaningless unless we first have a personal relationship with Jesus. Religion just doesn’t cut it, the Jews had religion, but they did not know God, they did not know who Jesus was, but we do, so we can dispense with our religion, and focus on Jesus.