Duty Free Series

It’s like my saying to newlyweds something like this: “OK, now that you’re married, you have to work on your relationship. You need to go shopping together every Friday night, you have to have a date night every Monday, you have to be intimate with each other 5 times a week, and you have to have a walk on the beach every Sunday afternoon. These are things you need to do in order for your love relationship to work.”

No, of course not. Those are good ideas, and they may help a young couple keep the fires burning, but you don’t HAVE to do them. You can’t force a love relationship with rules. And now that we are in a love relationship with God, we can celebrate Passover and find meaning in it. But we don’t have to.

Now, I am aware that some people in these parts are very strong in their opinions about religious holidays and holy days. That’s fine. A person could sit down and nitpick all the things wrong with Christmas and Easter. That’s fine too. But the spirit, the intent, the truth behind Paul’s caution to the Colossians applies to us today too: don’t let anyone judge you for how you worship Jesus. If you celebrate Passover, if you don’t celebrate Passover, if you celebrate Christmas, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, if you celebrate Easter or Resurrection Day, if you don’t celebrate Easter or Resurrection Day, don’t judge others, and don’t let them judge you.

Because, as Paul says, these are all shadows, just reflections, of Jesus. So I tell you, in everything, put Christ first. The other things, the traditions, the rituals, the food, the busyness… keep Jesus first in all things.

The 2nd caution is found in v18-19: Don’t let others lead you astray. These people, Paul says, appear spiritual and wise but are not. Look: they insist on self-denial (“you have to fast in order to be spiritual”), they are pre-occupied with angels, they talk of visions, and they claim to be humble and yet they are proud and arrogant – “my way or the highway”. They sound deep and spiritual but they are puffed up. They talk about all the things they know, and you have to have a certain knowledge in order to be saved. It was a 1st century teaching called Gnosticism, and it gets replayed in every century. You need to know this certain thing or else you’re not really connected to God. I’m not against deep preachers, and the Bible has an eternal depth of truth to it. But still, people tend to overcomplicate it and insist you need to see it their way, or you’re wrong.

The problem is that we often mistake rules for relationship. It’s that checklist Christianity again: did that, did that, working on that… OK, good. I’m a good Christian today. Please understand: standards are good. But they are not what makes a person a Christian or not. It’s a heart that follows after God. It’s so easy to judge a person by the clothes they wear or the words they use or their leisure activities. But we need not to judge someone by any of these things. You need to work out your own faith, forging your own convictions, and stay out of others’ business.