a recipe for salvation

"Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way." -Karl Barth, unknown citation.

How can it be that Jesus, God's presence on earth in humanity, full of life and truth, wrote nothing down!? Nothing! It's almost as if his words were not the point, and that should give theologians more pause. At least their pens, anyways. Perhaps what he said was not as important as who he was, though of course they are not unrelated(!). Jesus himself said that we speak "from out of the heart." It makes it terribly important that He was us, human, because he did not just point us to the right rules. In prayer this summer, I found myself confronted with a terrible question: do you want the recipe or the meal?