Rambling
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The last part there is interesting, maybe it reflects an alienation with tradition which has spread even to those who depend upon tradition or who ought to have the greatest appreciation for it.
Jesus was a traditional Jew you know, he practiced many of the precepts, as he understood them, which is important as he had a greater understanding than many but there are Jews who have indicated that Jesus was one of many itinerant preachers, such as the Essenes or, laterly, hasidics, even some contemporaneous agnostic jewish schools of thought.
Its all there in the sayings of Jesus himself, directly.
Jesus was born a Jew, true. However he was directly opposed to the hypocrisy he saw in the Jewish leaders of the religion of his day, describing them as vipers, for example in Matt 12:34. He managed to offend them in Luke 4 to the point that they tried to throw him off a cliff. He intensified the situation by driving out the street traders in the Temple, the most sacred place of their religion, see Matthew 12:21 onwards and he claimed to be God Himself frequently enough (the many I am sayings in the gospel of John, for example) that the religious Jewish leaders of his day demanded his death andr the common Jewish crowd of the time said that they were happy for his blood to be upon their heads. Hardly a standard or traditional adherent of Judaism, and certainly not accepted by the Jewish religious leaders...in fact he died underneath a rather sarcastic sign labelling him as their king.
I actually think that the practice of mindless ritual is
1) far from Christ himself
2) something he explicitly rejected in all its forms (try Matthew 6:7 "When you pray, don't babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again" - but this theme repeats through many variations...
3) something which causes its adherents to think that they are safe when they are in fact not safe at all.
4) dangerous since it leads people to avoid thinking for themselves
However Jesus did accept, practise and indeed fulfil the old law, in the process breaking open a new way of living for those who accept him and put his words into practice. Since he is risen, it follows that it is possible to know him and live life out of his Holy Spirit. This is very different in practice from following a list of rules, since nobody can *ever* fully keep every rule. Consider Romans 7 for a fuller discussion of this point.
There were others who claimed to be messiahs around the time of Jesus; it is perhaps noteworthy that no others succeeded in rusing from the dead.
Much of what passes for Christianity in church buildings today is from pagan rituals introduced into Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century AD. There have always been Christian groups who have stayed completely out of the religious format, for example, the Moravians.