Happy New Year! The Church of England, well really all churches, start their liturgical years on Advent. So Happy New Year. Last year had some scary bits in it. Quite likely this next year will too. But remember Stefan’s sermon from last week and hold on to Jesus and to each other and you will be okay.
Today you should be expecting a sermon on the Patriarchs, on the founders of our faith, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, perhaps even the matriarchs of Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. And so, a normal advent 1 sermon is an invitation for you to think about who were the founding fathers, mothers, to your faith? Who brought you to Church, who encouraged you in the faith. That’s a good thought
But today is different. And you have a bookmark to prove it. Please do put these bookmarks in your bible and use them through the year to encourage your faith. I hope that we will use it in our services a bit more often this year.
I once ran an after-school youth group, we had perhaps 10 kids, we did silly games and bible stories. It was great fun. We didn’t have any rules. And then one day we had 3 other kids show up. They realised that we didn’t have any rules and so they started to do stuff that ruined the whole club for everyone else. So within half an hour we had our rules.
Of course we had our rules all along, its just that they weren’t written down because there was enough respect and mutual understanding to know how far to push your luck. But these new comers didn’t know much about respect and they knew too much about pushing their luck.
So likewise here we have our creed. At first it was enough for someone to say – Do you love Jesus. And they would say ‘Yes I love Jesus’. And that’s enough.
Say Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. Great. That’s enough.
But then came variations of thinking about who Jesus is. Is Jesus really completely Divine? Completely God? 100% and the Christians said Yes.
But then someone said ‘But you cant hurt God can you, so when the Romans are nailing Jesus to the Cross, that doesn’t really hurt, he’s pretending to be human’. And the Christians went No. Jesus is completely human.
And so started this need to try to explain what we meant by that.
But the Creed is not really an explanation. Perhaps it started with a clever cleric called Arius living in Alexandria in Egypt in the early 300s. He wrote songs about how to understand Jesus and what he said was Jesus is almost Divine, he’s angelic, he’s super spiritual, he’s the very first thing that God made. But Jesus is not God.
Lots of people liked that because its simple. We believe in one God. God. And there’s this Jesus who is amazing but not God. We believe in one God. Sorted.
And this started up a bit of a discussion that led to the first ecumenical council. There had been little councils before that – gathering of Bishops to talk about the faith and practice. We know of one in Arles in France in the year 314 where we know that there were three bishops that came from England and that’s really exciting because it’s the first time we hear about how the Church is doing in England. Bishops of Colchester, London and York. Perhaps there were more bishops who couldn’t come, perhaps there was already by this time a network of churches across England. Know a little but there’s lots here we don’t know.
Anyway, in 325 the Christian Emperor Constantine had got upset about the amount of upset that was going on in his empire so he summoned lots of Bishops to come together and talk this one out. And it is from this council that we get the Nicene Creed.
They met in Nicaea. They talked it over. They agreed the creed. Job done. Alas it wasn’t really but I’m afraid you’ll have to read a Church History book for some more on that.
So here we are 1700 years since the Nicene Creed was written. And that’s why we will be spending some time on the Nicene Creed, during this Year of Faith.
The Creed we say today is 95% the same as what they said – after translation and being put in modern English – but still it went through a revision in 381 at the Council of Constantinople, and then it went through a tiny revision in 589. I will tell you more about that later in the year.
The Creed does not tell you what to do. It doesn’t tell you to tithe your money, to forgive others, to not commit murder. Instead it tries to tell you what to believe about God. This is laying a deep foundation stone on which you can safely build everything else.
So for example if you were to ask the question – How do I know God loves me? How do I know if I am forgiven? Then I hope that most of you in this room will say ‘Well the answer is Jesus!’ But then if someone were to push a bit and say ‘So Who is Jesus that He can forgive someone their sins?’ And now your answer starts being a bit more complicated.
Well Jesus is God. Completely. God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God.
And Jesus is human. Completely. Incarnate, He was made man, crucified under Pontius Pilate and so on. And so, that’s where you start to need a creed.
If Jesus is God but not human, then it’s all a bit of a farce, a pretence. If Jesus is human but not also God then you’re not forgiven, and you’re not reconciled to God.
So over this advent we’re going to look at the creed and maybe get as far as the line about the Virgin Mary. And then in Epiphany we’ll do some more, in Lent a bit more, after Easter another bit, and then after Trinity we’ll wrap it up.
The key Jewish creed was in our reading from Deuteronomy – Shema Israel Adonai eluhenu, Adonai echad. Hear O Israel the Lord your God, the Lord is one.
And from this creed comes that assurance of God’s love and care, and the call to keep close to God, and to follow His Law. So the Reading encouraged us to read our bibles – even to the point of talking about them as you go about your day, to wrap them around your head and arm – which some take quite literally – but I always thought it meant that by having the bible close by that you would remember that you are never far from God’s love.
There were lots of other alternative creation stories about in those days, quite a few were quite angry, – one of them has the moon being made out of a deity who got torn in two – and so perhaps unsurprisingly that way of looking at yourself, at life and your place in it- led to human sacrifice.
It all depends on what your creed is, what sort of a god you believe in. That shapes how you see yourself, the world around you and your part in it.
The Gospel reading – I tried to find a chapter of Scripture that contained the highest number of calls to Believe, Believe in me, in the Son. I count 6.
Jesus is urging us to believe in Jesus because in Him we find eternal life, in Him we find healing, in Him we find that our hopes and fears are met, that our lives and souls are satisfied as we live our lives through the lens of faith, on the foundation of Jesus.
Putting your faith in Jesus, Believing in Jesus, is an invitation for you to see life and its meaning and purpose through This God. And that means knowing His peace, and working with This God at reconciling all things through Christ to God.
That means you need a Creed that helps you anchor yourself to the God we find in Jesus.
So we hold tightly to our faith in One God. We insist on being monotheists. And we insist on holding on to the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit – one God– and in the mystery of it all we refuse to simplify our faith, and so we discover a God who is beyond us.
Not a mystery in the unknowable sense – because in Jesus God has revealed Himself to us, but a mystery in the sense of being endlessly knowable.
We know God a little through Jesus – but we also know that there is so much that we don’t. And so we rely on God’s help in His Holy Spirit for us to grow and learn a little more.
Our Creed starts with the Father – that’s how Jesus taught us to pray – Abba – our Father in heaven – if our starting point of faith is to see in the Maker of heaven and earth of all that is seen and unseen – to see this deity as Father. Then we start our day knowing that the God we put our faith in, calls us to that caring close relationship that we might expect from a loving parent.
So take this creed, chew it over, and let it be a solid foundation for your faith in One God, Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.