Spirit Gives Birth To Spirit

 All Christians everywhere are waiting in breathless anticipation of the second coming of Christ. It gives hope and bolsters us. It holds us up and presses us forward toward growth. It comforts us when we lose a loved one, because we will meet them again on the Last Day or when we go to Heaven, whichever comes first. It helps us remember what Jesus did for us. I firmly believe Jesus' death and what people call his Resurrection is the single most important event in human history. It overturned the rule of the world. It made the last the first, the least of these the greatest, as well as the first the last. It made death bearable, because it lost its sting. It inspired a movement that has lasted more than two centuries and brought countless good to the poor and underprivileged and outsiders of this world. But what if we are waiting for an event and missing the point?    What if the second coming of the Christ is not an event measured by the definitive date markers ...

     To grab on to God with both hands, one has to let go of religion.  I have been a Christian for more than 20 years.  And I think I can sum up the point of Jesus' ministry in a simple statement: "Let go of religion and hold on - with every fiber of your being - to God."  What makes me think this?  When Jesus came into this world, he came into a system of beliefs that had strayed far from the simple faith of Abraham.  It was a system of religious oppression headed by the Teachers of the Law: the Pharisees and Sadducees.  They required strict adherence to a set of laws as a requirement for men to commune with God.  There were strict rules of what sacrifices had to be made (doves, bulls etc) in restitution for sin in order to be right with God.  Jesus came and threw all of this out.  He upturned the money changers tables and sacrificial animal dealers that took up shop in the Temple.  He told people, including women, "You...