Sacred wonder

People have been talking about the current BBC documentary ‘Sacred Wonders’ which is roving the world to record the dramatic ways that people express their faith. All of the major faiths are included, with the emphasis not so much on the meaning of their faith, although that is not irrelevant, but rather on the scale of the event, the size of the crowds, the costly devotion of the worshippers, the drama and the spectacle. Whether it is a whole town in Mali getting together to replaster an ancient mosque with mud, or kitchens in the Golden Temple in Amritsar that aim to give a free meal to every one of its 250,000 visitors, who can fail to be impressed?

There’s no doubt that the events shown make impressive, even inspiring viewing, but are we looking at the right things? The New Testament would tell us to ask different questions. Jesus, for instance, would challenge us to see that outward devotion is not what counts. On more than one occasion he rebuked the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. He called them “whitewashed tombs” – clean and respectable on the outside, but full of unclean deadness on the inside – accusing them of looking righteous, while all the time living wicked, greedy and self-indulgent lives. Other people hearing this would have been deeply shocked, because the Pharisees were the ultimate examples of religious devotion. If their devotion wasn’t enough, what hope was there for anyone else?

What Jesus was talking about was a need for an inward change. The heart, he said, is where the problem lies. It is from the heart that evil thoughts, immorality, greed and arrogance all come, and the heart is not touched by an outward show of devotion, whether that is ceremonial washing, purifying by fire, or building a temple. We need something more.

Of course, nearly all religions assume that something needs to be done by a deity to change us. And these religions also all assume that we can do something to persuade that deity to do that for us; that is why these ceremonies are held. And we quite naturally assume that the more devotion displayed, the more intense the effort, the more costly the sacrifice, even the more painful the suffering, the more pleased God will be. But the Bible bursts that bubble. It tells us we cannot win his favour by what we do; we cannot earn his blessing over our lives, even with our religious devotion. We have to rely on someone else.

It is the apostle Paul who puts it most clearly and powerfully into words in his letters. We are not saved by what we do, but rather we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Because God sent him as a sacrifice to pay for our sins and change our hearts, that salvation cannot be bought by our sacrifice. It is a free gift. It is not paid to us like wages, because the wages we should earn for our sin is death. Rather it is given to those who do not work for it, but trust God for it instead.

So there is a world of difference between the religious fervour ‘Sacred Wonders’ is portraying and the Bible’s rather unimpressive insistence on faith in Jesus alone. What it means is that we should not be impressed with herculean devotion and effort on the part of worshippers; we should be impressed by the sacrifice of Jesus. We shouldn’t boast in ourselves – and religious devotion does tend to produce boasting and pride, as the Muslim mosque builder in the second film showed as he competed for the honour of plastering the top of the minaret – rather we should be boasting about Jesus. We shouldn’t be thinking about what we can do; we should be thinking about what Jesus has already done. But I doubt that programme makers will be interested in that. It just doesn’t make for exciting enough television.