Things Most Surely Believed
March 7, 2010 – Rev. Dr. Catherine Clark Kroeger
Luke 1:4
Our scripture this morning lays out what the Apostle Paul considered the essential platform of our faith, that upon which we build all the rest. We also read St. Peter’s declaration of the surety of the gospel events and the reliability of the eyewitnesses. It was from statements in the Bible such as those we have read that there arose the Apostles’ Creed, that powerful and sometimes puzzling manifesto of Christian truth. It forms common ground for Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant faith communities, even though there are differences in interpretation. This creed did not fall from heaven but was hammered out by sincere Christians who struggled mightily to try to arrive on the same page as to what were the essential tenets of Christianity. Actually, there were many ups and downs, shameless politicking and sometimes physical blows – the church of 300 AD was just as full of sinners then as it is to-day.
[powerpress]During the persecution of the first centuries of the church, there were many who puzzled over the sacred texts, over their memories of Jesus’ life and passion, and over the traditions that had grown up. We must remember that at this time, there was no clear definition as to which were the inspired books of scripture that were to be included in our Bible, and no clear statement as to how to conceive of God, or of the coming of Jesus into the world, or his criminal execution and subsequent resurrection, or the promise of forgiveness and salvation to all who believed. Followers of Jesus had been bound together as Christians by oppression and persecutions. When the Emperor Constantine confessed Christianity, individual churches and communities were free to move further apart in their understanding and their practice. Very early on some leaders began to call for a “rule of faith”, and some even attempted to draw one up, but they always ran into objections from others.
The Bible revealed many truths, but there was no one place that laid them all out in a uniform statement. There needed to be a simple straightforward confession of faith to which all faithful Christians could subscribe. What were the central truths that could bind them together, how could both the learned and the ignorant be given a basic framework for their faith? Could there be an outline that defined the essentials to those outside the believing community, to help unbelievers understand what was the faith for which Christians were willing to die? In an era when most people could not read, how could there be a brief statement that helped integrate the essential truths? A thumb-nail sketch, the bare bones on which to stretch the fabric of our faith. Later there would be many addditions and variations, but the first is the one embraced by all branches of Christendom.
In 325 AD, even though the Emperor Constantine was not entirely fixed in his own notions, he sent for a great conference of bishops to regularize what all Christians should believe and how they should worship and conduct church business. We see here a mediaeval drawing of the great council of Nicaea, in what is now Turkey. At the bottom of the painitng we see a dejected gentleman holding his hands over his ears. The legend above him reads “Arius, who fights against God.” In point of fact, Arius was a gifted preacher and song writer with an enormous following especially in Egypt. He revered Jesus Christ but not as equal with the Father – rather as a being who came into existence later. He said, ”There was a time when the Son was not.” In his thought, Christ was not divine at the same level as the Father and should be accorded a lower position.
But the church fathers maintained that Father, Son and Holy Spirit were equal in goodness, power and love. The most articulate defender of this position was a short young man named Athanasius, sometimes referred to as “the black dwart.” He was too young to have achieved the office of bishop but came as secretary to Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and as such formulated the doctrine most clearly. Actually, you have been looking at a sort of cartoon of the Nicene Council, with the bad guy at the bottom. Incidentally, the reverend bishop of Myra, St. Nicholas is supposed to have directed a punch at him. Above Arius sit the pope and the emperor Constantine and then row upon row of bishops. Note the dark skin of the orthodox African bishops as our gaze moves upward. At the very top, standing on the altar is the dwarf Athanasius in a position similar to that in which John the Baptist is often shown pointing to Christ.
But how are we to understand the rationale that led hundreds of bishops to subscribe to the same faith statement? How can God be both one and at the same time three. We must understand that the Christian faith is full of paradoxes. How could Christ be both man and God, how can there be both predestination and free will, how could the Bible be written by flawed human beings and yet bring us the Word of God? The answer of course is that God’s mind is infinitely greater than ours and contains so much that is incomprehensible. If we do not understand the universe itself, how can we understand the nature of its maker?
The Church Fathers affirmed that Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all God, all sharing a common nature, and being of the same substance. But yet they were distinct persons with distinct actions. During the Middle Ages, a diagram was devised to help with theological instruction. Here we see a triangle with three corners, one labeled in Latin “Father” , the next one “Son” and the third “Holy Spirit”.
Here is a greatly simplified edition of the diagram in English. You can see that between the corners runs a legend along the side that the Father is not the Son and not the Holy Spirit. The Son is not the Father and not the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son. Though they are one, yet they are separate, and yet all partake of the being and majesty of God. In the center of the triangle is a round globe marked “God”, and the legends leading from each corner to the center read the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God.
Some of us may say “that’s too complicated” and other “that’s too simple. How can we reduce God to a triangle?” Of course both view-points are right. The nature and being of God are far beyond our comprehension, and yet this God seeks to become known to us and loved by us. Just as a child cannot understand many things about its parents and yet loves and trusts them, so we can love even if we cannot fathom the profundity that surrounds us. We can only trust.
Our confession begins “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth – and a later creed was to add “and of all things visible and invisible.” However vast the universe, we know its creator on a personal level. Jesus said, “he that has known the Father has known me” and it is through the Son that we come to understand many things about the Father. The creed continues “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord who was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary.”
A central part of our belief is that Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit invaded the common experiences of human reality, including the indignity of the birthing process. There were some in the early church who did not believe in the humanity of Jesus, did not believe that he had a normal digestion or a need for elimination. No, said the Church fathers – he took on our humanity in all respects, born as a helpless, squalling baby.
Our creed does not speak further of his childhood or his ministry but moves from the particulars of his birth to the particulars of his death. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. In so stream-lined a version of the life of Christ, why is Pilate mentioned? As our scripture said, “we have not followed cleverly devised fables.” This statement identifies that Jesus died at a specific time and in a real place, unlike the Greek and Roman myths that placed the actions of the gods in a “once upon a time” land far away and long ago.
We must remember that the system of labeling years BC or AD would not be developed until hundreds of years after the life of Christ upon earth.. The Greeks dated things from the four year periods between Olympic gaves. Events took place in the sixth Olympiad or the twentieth or the twenty-seventh.
Romans tended to date things by mentioning the year of an emperor or consul or governor. Events were dated by the specific ruler or magistrate under whose administration they took place. Pontius Pilate was the somewhat inept Roman governor of Palestine. He is is mentioned by the historian Josephus, including the notation that he was recalled to Rome because of his ineffectiveness. Actually, the stone has been recovered that marked his seat in the theatre in Caesarea Maritima, still engraved with his name. Yes, Pilate was an identifiable and datable political figure who knowingly sent an innocent man to his death. Furthermore, the Gospels maintain that the birth of Jesus occurred in the days of Herod the Great when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and Augustus ruled the Roman Empire, all identifiable political figures known from non-biblical accounts.
But why does the creed say that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate. Of course we think at once of the vicious flogging, the insults and taunting and sub-human treatment. It seems also to mean that he was treated as a non-person and denied all the legal rights that he should have had in both the Jewish and Roman justice system. He endured three hasty and clearly irregular trials: before the Jewish Sanhedrin, the tetrarch Herod, and the Roman tribunal. As Isaiah had predicted “by oppression and unfair judgment he was taken away’ (53:9) Why didn’t Jesus, who in other circumstances was so clever at answering his adversaries, make a brilliant courtroom defense? Because he maintained that it was for this very cause that he had come into the world. (John 18:37) and that he had voluntarily chosen this path. What Pilate could not know was that this path would lead to God’s grand design of redemption for human kind.
Jesus had known the ignominy of birth in a cattle barn and death before those who taunted and trivialized his sufferings and sought to turn the scene into a public farce. Undeniably he had been sentenced to execution as a criminal, and this was an embarrassment to his followers. Crucifixion was the Roman equivalent of the electric chair. Some scholars consider that the Gospel of Mark was actually written to be a defense of the disgrace of Jesus’ crucifixion. Around 200 AD, the church Father Tertullian wrote
The Son of God was crucified: I am not ashamed because men must be ashamed of it. And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed because it is absurd. And he was buried and rose again; the fact is certain because it is impossible.[1]
The records affirm that Jesus was truly mortal and truly died, although there have always been those who maintained that this was only an appearance. But the Christian faith has insisted upon an actual death, as did the soldiers who were in charge of the execution. They were very good at assessing whether or not that had finished the job right. His burial was accomplished by two devoted male followers and observed by a group of faithful women. After the body had been laid away, some of them remained watching beside the borrowed tomb. The Gospels give the names of those who observed the location and manner of burial. Yes, there were careful witnesses.
For many people the most puzzling statement in the Apostles Creed is that Christ “descended into hell.” The word actually indicates the world of the dead, usually viewed as the underworld. The concepts of heaven and hell were far less developed than they were later to become, but here the emphasis is upon Jesus’ entry into the human experience that lies beyond the grave. Of what happened during those three days we know very little, but one biblical account intimates that he preached to souls in prison (1 Peter 3:19). It suggests that the death of Jesus had far broader implications than we might imagine.
On the third day he rose from the dead. Remember that this is reckoned by the Jewish calendar system of counting days rather than the method we generally use to-day. By our mathematics, the time of His interment would be about thirty-six hours. But the astounding fact is that one who was thoroughly dead rose bodily from the grave. It was attested by a group of thunderstruck women who had come to complete the embalming process that had been hastily performed by Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus. Some have said that an evidence of the truth of the testimony is that the first eye witnesses were all women – someone inventing the story would have made them male in order to create credibility. But the startling fact is that the Son of God, both divine and human, did indeed rise in victory over death and sin and the effects of evil. He promised “because I live, ye shall live also.” (Jpjpm 14:19) For forty days he met with his friends and ate with them and told them to bear witness throughout the world to the good news of his death and resurrection.
Then he ascended into heaven to resume a position of honor and power. As he had known humiliation during his life on this earth, he now knew the glory that had first been his. He said that he was going to prepare a place for his friends and that he would come again to receive them.
The creed declares that he shall return to judge the living and the dead. This promises that in the end there shall be justice. Wrongs will be righted, faithfulness and goodness rewarded, the cause of the oppressed vindicated. Hidden things will be brought to light, and in the end nobody is going to get away with anything. There will be a day of justice making.
As He left his followers, Jesus told them to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit who would guide them into all truth. Ten days later that gift was given. When we say that we believe in the Holy Spirit, the lord and giver of life, we affirm the loving, living presence and power that gave birth to the church and transformed that cowardly bunch of disciples into heroes of the faith. The Spirit indwells the life of every believer and is no less God than the Father and the Son.
It is the work of this selfsame spirit that not only brought the church into being but also sustains it through the ages. Through persecution, and peril and testing and triumph, through weakness and strength, through despair and decision the Spirit still leads. When we declare our belief in the Holy Catholic Church, we must understand that the word Catholic actually means universal. We believe in the march of the church all around the world, in all its different forms and aspects.
The Holy Spirit has created a communion of saints. the union of all who claim Christ as Lord and Saviour of our lives. Remember that the word “saint” applies to all those who have found faith in Jesus Christ. From our personal perspective, it is hard to claim union with those who use too little water in baptism or not enough, who worship with highly formalized liturgy or with no formality at all, those who shout aloud in the excitement of their worship experience or remain stolidly silent with no response at all. We confess our unity with all these when we speak of the communion of the saints. In Jesus Christ we are one body with Trappist monks and Shakers and holy rollers and old order Mennonites.
The bond is strongest when we gather together at the memorial of the broken body and shed blood of the one who gave his life for our redemeption. Here we reach out in mystic communion not only with God but also with others who have known the forgiving grace of God in their lives. Actually we are a fellowship of the reconciled, seeking together forgiveness for our failures and folly and covenanting anew to live out God’s transforming grace in our lives.
How blessed to affirm the forgiveness of sins not because we are holy or deserving but because the Son of God with his own death has purchased our redemption. Sometimes we are afraid to profess our allegiance to Christ because we are so terribly aware of our own sinful failings. How blessed then to proclaim not our own virtue but that a forgiving God has received us as His own.
But what is this statement about the resurrection of the body? Are our physical remains to be gathered together again? During World War II, my brother’s ship went down in shark-infested waters off the coast of Guadalcanal. Will God reassemble his body from the depths of the sea? Surely God is able, but here I think we are best guided by the Apostle, who uses the word “body” in no less that six different meanings in his first epistle to the Corinthians. Body, as it is used in that letter, can mean a group of believers, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, oneself as a sexual human being, the individual personality, or an actual physical body. St. Paul maintained that bodies at the resurrection will differ markedly from those of the here and now. All this seems to me to indicate that in the afterlife we do not just become part of an amorphous world soul. Rather we shall retain our individuality as thinking and feeling personalities who can make our own choice joyfully to do the will of God as we are best able.
Lastly we affirm our belief in the life everlasting. Some people say, “when you die, you’re dead and that’s it.” Our faith tells us that the grave is not the end, the soul does not die, that it lives forever in new and more meaningful conditions. That we shall know even as also we are known, delighting in the presence and glory of Jesus Christ – and that we shall be His forever.
The Apostles’ Creed states not only our conviction about God’s mighty work in the past but also about that which is still to come. God‘s purposes for humanity are not finished. We travel with the assurance of Christ’s forgiveness of our sin but also with courage to live in a fallen and sinful world where one day all things will be made right. We confess what we cannot yet see, knowing that in God all things are possible.
[1] Tertullian. On the Flesh of Christ 5. Ante Nicene Fathers 3:525