Ritual or Relationship
“Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?””
In Acts 7, Stephen is on trial in front of the Sanhedrin because some false witnesses have accused him of speaking against the temple and the law of Moses. His response was so powerful and so profound it rocked the collected body of the Sanhedrin to its core. He had confronted them with their sin of taking the temple and the promised land and the law of Moses and making idols of them. He accused them of being idol worshipers of the gifts of God instead of God himself. They became enraged. So enraged that they killed him for what he said.
They had indeed elevated their traditions to the level of God’s commands.
If you haven’t heard yet—I have three kids now. The most recent is my daughter, Eden, who was born 11 weeks ago. However, Kayla started experiencing a lot of complications in the labor process. She ended up experiencing what’s called prodromal labor 7 weeks before she was due. She was experiencing all the regular pains of labor with none of the progress. This lasted 6 weeks until a few days before her due date. When her water broke at home (which has NEVER happened with our other two kids) and so we rushed to the hospital. We’d had complications before with delivery but that night everything went so smoothly and she ended up giving birth to our daughter Eden an hour after her water broke.
It was—I was almost going to say painless, obviously not!—it was incredible. We were worshiping in the room, our daughter was crying and I was crying as hard as her.
I’ll never forget that room, but when I think of my daughter Eden, I don’t think of the room she was born in. I think of her because how strange would it be if I kept going back to the ultrasound pictures, or if I kept trying to get back into the hospital room and feel “close” to her again? She’s arrived and she’s a delight and brings delight to everyone around her. How strange and hypocritical would it be if my idea of being close to my daughter was caught up in ultrasound pictures, empty hospital rooms, and old pregnancy tests?
The way for me to be close to her now is to be in a relationship with her.
Why would I spend time staring at the ultrasound photo or helping my wife with compression socks? Those were the things I did during the pregnancy, but my daughter is here. I no longer do those things, though they were important at the time. She is the fulfillment of the pregnancy because those things that came before were pointing to her arrival.
The same is true for Christ.
Without recognizing it, they were worshiping and serving the system God had given them. It was meant to be a sign of the coming messiah but instead of getting God himself, they settled for the traditions they had built upon the commands of God.
They settled for rituals when they could have had a relationship.
This is why David writes in the psalms,
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. - Psalm 51:16-17
They were experts in sacrifice and burnt offerings but not in broken spirits. And we do the same thing.
So many of us live as Moralistic Deists, we accept God as a reality but not in a relationship. In this same way, we can elevate religious tradition to become more important than a living relationship with Christ. We have Christians in this country who choose churches based on our preferences. We care more about how charismatic the preaching is. We care more about how well-mixed the worship music is. We care more about how great the coffee is.
Let us not become so caught up in the rituals and traditions of the past that we are blind to the presence of the Spirit in the present. Seek the Lord with all your heart and you will find him. Trust in his word and be led by his Holy Spirit. Walk with him all the days of your life.
Bring an end to religion in your life and instead take up a relationship with God.
