Jesus was a Jew. Not just by birth, but he had a deep and powerful relationship with God and his culture. He did not come to offer a new religion but to broaden a religion that had confused the law with the belief. He did not come to remove the Roman occupation of his land but to strengthen the people toward faith over fear. Jewish law had turned the religion away from the pure covenant with God and forced control over its people. The occupied government had pressed harder on the need of the Jewish governing body to keep their people focused on the religion and not on the faith. The laws were weak and meaningless, and the relationship God’s people had with him was suffering.

Jesus gently, and at times passionately, guided his people who would listen back to the faith. This faith was already in them, as Jesus would point out often. Your faith is what healed you, your faith is what saved you, your faith is what brought you to me. Jesus exposed our trust in law, our trust in the government, our trust in the world, and our lack of trust in God. He offered a glimpse into God’s heart, into God’s kingdom, allowing us to understand how to be vulnerable with God and release our own pain caused by the world.

Today that pain has become very real. We are waiting on the government to resemble the truth and trust we have in our hearts. We again placed our trust and vulnerability away from God and with the world. This vulnerability and trust is not for the institutions that rule over us but for God and God alone. We are also waiting on our religion, our religious leaders, and our church to meet us with the morality of faith that we know to be right. But this, too, is a cup only God can fill.

The Christian church has become weak with laws, resembling the temple of Jesus’ time. The temple had a governing body for the people to follow. The people celebrated on the correct days, ate the correct foods, and obeyed the correct rulers. They replaced the hard work of the relationship with God with a lazy, fruitless set of guidelines that was supposed to ensure them a seat next to God by birthright alone. This lazy attitude to be instructed and governed has reached another apex in today’s society. Of all the institutions that have removed our need to have a deep and meaningful relationship with God, the church has been the most painful to witness. Our governing bodies within the church have weakened faith by complacency, by the need for security, and by the threat of poverty.

This pandemic was a miracle to expose the institutions that have weakened the minds and hearts of the believers. We have become so overwhelmed with fear that we have actually started to become fearless. We have become so disenfranchised that we might actually start to cultivate our own fruit.

My husband and I like to watch the older shows with our children: Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and Mr. Rodgers, to name a few. Why? Because as we watch what is represented on television today we are appalled by the lack of depth, the dumbed downed, skimmed over, pretend morality. Children, like adults, deal with real issues in life: loss, emptiness, frustration, a fight for a sense of self, and a need to trust something greater. Their faith is pure, new, and delicate; it deserves our more, not our less.

We have spent enough time watering down the content, of the meaning, of our own faith. We have to stop grabbing hold and fighting for the intuitions that produce no fruit. Going back to our true belief is to turn our cheeks away from these programs and systems. If the states and government offer no living water, let it writher. Simply give to Caesar yet remember your covenant is not with Caesar. If the school offers only control, yet no real substance, let it fall. A child can live without Pythagoras or Shakespeare, but not without God. If the church, oh the beloved church, offers a doctrine that only powers itself and gives little attention to the absolute truth of personal belief, let the walls crumble like the temple of Solomon.

We must prune the dead branches of the great tree of faith or we will have no fruit to feed our children. Cutting away the disease can be painful, like removing cancer or gangrene can be emotional. We are losing a piece of our self. But to allow the infection, the body gets destroyed. We cannot be saved by philosophy alone. Our actions may require a sacrifice of time, finances, and comfort of past traditions. These actions may not change the world, it may only change our little corner. But the household, community, local systems and local churches still need change anyway. No action guided by God is fruitless. Jesus was only in a small corner of the earth but his words and actions brought peace to a wayward world. And he still does!

Melanie Winter

Melanie is the Director of Marketing and Content Writer for WinternetWeb Technologies.

Melanie writes content for clients to promote marketing and branding in her web development business. She also writes for a blog and local community history projects and publications. She earned a Bachelors from Virginia Tech in Communications, English, and Religion. Melanie also enjoys writing fiction, spending time with her two daughters, antiquing, gardening, and community volunteering.