Apostles' Creed: God, Father, Creator

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

Faith and Belief are interesting words. We say that we have belief in a certain thing, and yet too often our actions belie a very different belief. Faith and belief are often dictated to be only about God or some other religion. The truth is that both are connected much closer to what is deep within us, what or who we trust. You can have faith and not believe in a God. Faith is simply a trusting in a person or thing. I have faith that the skyscraper that I work in will not fall. I wasn’t here when it was built, but I have faith that the architects and builders did a good job. I put my faith in the fact that it looks stable and it’s been standing for several years. This faith comes easily. It makes sense. Similarly belief is to trust in something, but something that is much harder to prove. I know very little about micro chemistry and a little more about physics. However I have no way of disproving the god partial or dark matter. Before these things where proven by science, the general public had to believe that science was telling them the truth: that the theories were true.

However, faith and belief are not built in a void. When I say that I believe God exists, I’m not saying that I’m sticking my head in the sand. Science has yet to prove that God doesn’t exist. And the fact that many prominent scientists today are Christian or follow some other religion, gives credence to the fact that Science might be closer to proving God then disproving him. (see this wiki article for a list of past and present Christian thinkers in science). Not that it matters whether we can prove God’s existence or not. We all believe in something: whether it is God or the fact that there is no God.

I would argue that belief is not the problem. The problem is what we believe. Many people believe in a god of some sort: whether he is a ‘nice’ entity who answers our prayers and gives off a warm fuzzy feeling, or an ‘evil’ being having fun playing with the little human below. When I say ‘I believe in God’, I am saying the kind of God that I believe in. God (with an uppercase), is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the God that brought the Israelites out of Egypt.

But the Apostles’ Creed doesn’t stop with ‘I believe in God’; rather it continues to speak to God’s character. ‘The Father Almighty’: God is not just the God of Israel, he is our Father. When Christ taught his disciples to pray, He opened the prayer with ‘Our Father’. God as a father reminds us that God is good and he cares for his children. Almighty means that he is enough above all others; he is to be first in our lives. But greater then father or might is the fact that God is ‘the creator of heaven and earth’. This act of creation, gives God authority. If God is the author of creation, of our lives, then he is capable of amazing and wonderful things. God’s power in creation reminds us of the image we bear. We are made in his image. We can call him father. He is the Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, of the seen and unseen.

So when I say: ‘I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth’, I am saying that that belief is evident in my life. Terrifyingly I state this every week in church, out loud among my community. I often wonder if my faith, my belief in God and his character is evident in my life. If what I state every week, has indeed permeated the whole of me. Sometimes, I look back at my week and see time and time again when I didn’t really act out of belief, but rather out of fear. Times when I gave God less of a position in my life then my own creations and earthly hopes. I need the reminder that God is the Almighty one, my Father, my creator, and my God.

Apostles' Creed: Stating Belief

Every week before communion is served we stand and recite the Apostles' Creed. The church that I grew up in didn't do this. We would randomly say the Apostle's Creed and I had to learn it for my confirmation class, but we didn't do it weekly. It seems a little old fashioned, which is probably why I like it. There is something simple and beautiful about reciting ones beliefs. However I'm sure that those who grew up in traditions were the various creeds are not recited or even taught, speaking some set belief together must seem odd.

The Apostles' Creed (in latin Symbolum Apostolicum, meaning symbol of Apostles), is old. The first mention is in 390AD. A creed is simply a statement of faith or the core of shared belief. Although there are several other Creeds which were written later, the Apostles' Creed is probably one of the oldest and most used (You can check out wikipedia here for more information). 

Christianity is a complicated faith. Not only are there several different denominations which have sprung up through the ages, there are also sects and other shoot off from the main belief. So when my church stands up and recites this Creed it is meant to unify and strengthen our beliefs. At the core of our theology and belief, this is who we are. Over the next couple of posts I'm going to break down the apostles' creed and talk more about each section/line. But for now I want to leave you with it as a whole statement. When we speak of faith and belief, as Christian's this is what we talk of. Sure some of us argue over theology and the nitty gritty of faith. Both overall I think most would agree that this statement covers a lot, if not all, of the basics of Christianity. 

Apostles' Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

*(the true Christian church of all times and places)

The Day is Coming

Malachi 4 'Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evil doer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire.' Says the Lord Almighty. 'Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like caves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,' Says the Lord Almight. 'Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.'

The first part of this short chapter reminds me of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Lewis writes of a land which is held in constant twilight and a heaven which is waiting for the dawn. The people of the twilight world come to heaven like empty glass containers, ghosts, who have no way to impact the perfection of heaven. Ghosts who find pain in merely walking of the realness of what the world was meant to be. Those who choose the twilight world (and it is a choice) fear the coming sun (judgement). The people of heaven wait in waiting for the time when God will do what he has promised. Its a beautiful view of how the day of the Lord is both a furnace burning away the arrogant and evil doers, and a full sunrise under which the righteous will be healed and dance with joy. God promises destruction for evil and restoration for the good.

Too often I hear people say that they believe in heaven, but not hell. Heaven is after all the nicer of those two places. A place where peace and love reigns. The idea that there is an ultimate judgement, that there is a distinct line between right and wrong is too much to comprehend. However, when we remove hell, the reason for heaven is lost. If there is not a place where all evil is held and punished, there is no reason for a heaven at which that evil is forgotten and healed. If we refuse God his place in judgement, we have no right to his redemption and renewal.

Moreover, we assume that heaven and hell are places that are only have power after we die. Too often I have lived my life as if the things of this world, money and self, are the most important things. I live as earth is a separate world from those of hell and heaven. The truth is that heaven and hell are behind every turn. Too many people that I know, even Christians, believe that the things of this earth are the goals of life. Even good things, like feeding the homeless or giving money to the church, become things that make us better at life on earth. Check boxes to be checked and little more. But we are warned else where in the bible that the things of this world will not be taken with us. They will be destroyed.

Thus we are already in hell, if we are not willing to claim our citizenship in heaven. If we give into the pull of the earth and its broken crumbling destruction, we will never see the renewal promised. The coming of the sun will be the worse thing that could possible be imagined. Because with the coming of the Lord's day, comes the destruction of all the things that we cling to the most. Nothing of this earth will be allowed to stay unchanged. We must allow ourselves to be refined. I can't think of anything more terrifying then knowing that the evil in me will be allowed to stay. That like Malachi writes in chapter 3 'for he will be like a refiner's fire...'

Yet, if we claim our citizenship of heaven. If we seek out the refiner of our souls. We are promised treasure beyond comprehension. We will be called daughters and sons. Will be heirs not just to the wonders of heaven, but to the glories of the restored earth. If we are willing to give up our hold on the things that keep us tied to the earth, it follows that we will see them restored. But we can not keep them in their fallen state. The day is coming, will we be burned with the arrogant or leap like the calves?

Return

Malachi 3:6-18 "I the Lord do not Change. So you, o descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," Says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, 'How are we to return?' Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, How do we rob you? In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse - the whole nation of you - because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the store house, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty. And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit. Says the Lord Almighty, then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. You have said harsh things against me. says the Lord. Yet you ask, what have we said against you? You have said, it is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape. Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. They will be mine. Says the Lord Almighty. in the day when I make up my treasured possessions. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not."

'I the Lord do not change.' This is an amazing and beautiful promise. Unlike everything in this world, the Lord, the maker of this world, is unchanging. This seems a strange concept. We may not like change, but we are surrounded by it. Whether it is the slow mark of time which weakens and ages this world, or the onward march of technology, everything is changing constantly. We set our schedules, we get used to a certain order of events day in and day out. But our days never go exactly to plan. Change comes: in blaring sudden harsh reality or in a slow almost obscured slightness.

The unchanging Lord is what we can cling too. In fact it is given as the reason that the people of Jacob have not been destroyed. The promise of an unchangeable Lord, is a promise that his character is well known. It has been proven and over and over again. All of Malachi up to this point has reminded the people that the Lord is their God. He called Abraham. He called Moses and David. His promises will come true.

However the Lord like any good parent, can let his children continue to live on in sin and hatefulness. He begs them. Return to me and I will return to you. This idea of return is very beautiful. And yet so often, we don't realize that we have left. How are we to return? We ask. How do we come back to the unchanging, unchangable Lord?

We are given two real ways in which to return. The first is through giving of tithes and the second is to believe in the justice of the Lord. It might be strange that the Lord choice to single out money and our sense of justice. Yet these are two of the deepest ways that we refuse to give God the glory and proper place in our lives.

How often do we think of our pay check as all ours? After all we are the ones that worked for that money, we deserve it. How often to we question God's justice while we see injustice in the world? How often to we judge those around us harshly picking out the speck in their eyes, while we have a log jam in ours?

By pointing out how we use and think about our possessions, God is reminding us that all things come first from him. It is by his grace that we can work to make money. When we tithe, its not for the church or even for God, its so that we remember that all things Belong to God. By pointing out that we are to fear God and believe in his justice, God reminds us that he holds all things in his hands. He feeds the birds of the air. He see all the deeds of men, even those we can not see. He reads our hearts. He is the perfect judge, because he is the only one who can know all the facts in the case.

God is to be first in our lives. Ourselves and our things are first his, and for his use. Our sense of justice is based on his character and love. We return to God, by remembering to put God and ourselves in the proper place (God first, then us).

When we get the order right. When God is first. When we offer him the first of ourselves: we are promised an abundance that overflows our expectations. When we fear the Lord, when we seek his rightness, we are promised his compassion. We are promised rightness with him. When we seek to be right with God, to return to him. He opens himself to us. He offer himself to us. There is no greater gift.

Do We Want to Endure?

Malachi 2:17-3:5

'You have wearied the Lord with your words. "How have we wearied him?" you ask. By saying "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them" Or "Where is the God of Justice?" 
"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," Says the Lord Almighty.  
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a Launderer's soup. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. 
"So I will come near to you for judgement, I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the Lord Almighty.'

'But who can endure the day of his coming?' It's not surprising to me that the Jews of Jesus day didn't recognize him. He didn't come in guns blazing calling fire down from the sky. He didn't clean house. He didn't get rid of the pesky Romans. Instead he called fisher men and a tax collector to be his disciples. He called for a radical way to love. In fact the only time he really gets violently angry is when he over throws the tables of the money changers in the temple. The refining that Jesus brings is so different from what was expected.

The Lord promises that he is going to come and judge the people of the earth. That the wrong that has infiltrated the very essences of every filament in our being will not be left. When silver and gold are refined, all the lesser metals and junk are burned away. God makes a promise that he will bring judgement. But more then that, he will give us a way to bring offerings that are expectable to him.

No longer will our rightness with God be determined by our own ability to carry out his commandments and laws. Because there never really was a chance of us being about to do that in the first place. We have, down to our filament, our very molecules, been separated from God by our perfect ability to imperfectly worship him. Who can endure his coming? He promises to break us down, to in a way, completely remake us. We can not endure, at least not how we are now.

But do we want to endure? Of course we do. That's the major problem. God promises to unravel us to pull out our very selves. The monumental heap of dung that is our lives, is more important to us then the utter wonderment of God's love. Against God we are worthless, sin infested, specks of nothing. But we don't like that comparison, so we compare ourselves against those like us. After-all, I'm better then that guy who drinks every night and doesn't work. Sure I'm not perfect, but no one is.

The Lord isn't forcing his refining on us. He is offering it to us, because he wants to call us Children. He wants to be our father. He is promising to make us as we should be, as he intended us to be. No longer are we a bit of shiny dirt, we will be pure gold. No longer a monumental heap of dung, but a pure reflection of the one who made us. No longer will we be imperfect, we will be perfect in him. It might not be fun in the fire, but it could be worth it.

The Problem with Commitment

Malachi 2:10-16 Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?
¹¹ Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. ¹² As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to theLord Almighty.
¹³ Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. ¹⁴ You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
¹⁵ Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
¹⁶ “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.

There is a saying that gets thrown around a lot at my church: Image Bearers. It really struck me when I first heard it. I had been taught as a child that we are all created in the image of God, but I had never heard Image Bearers before. In saying that we are image bearers, we are saying that we bear the image of God. The word bear, means to hold a burden, like a roof bears the burden of snow. In a way this is true of us as well. There are no other beings in the universe that can claim to be made in the image of God. Nor is there any being that can claim that God would stoop so low as to wear our skin, our clay. 

Our image is that of a creator, our burden is to bear that image in this world. So Malachi's question cuts deep at the beginning of this passage. 'Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?' If we are in fact bearing the image of God, why do we continue to treat others as less then ourselves? When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was he answered 'Love the Lord your God... and the second... Love your neighbor.' (Matt 22:36-40). It makes sense that we would love the God who made us and because of this love, love those created in his image.

The problem is that we don't like playing by the rules. We feel the need to dictate our own way, to set ourselves up to be greater then the God of creation. And this in truth is the reason there is a problem with commitment. If we refuse to worship and love the God who knit us together, who breathed life into our clay, how can we ever truly love and commit to the people around us? 

We are so easily drawn away from what deep love and commitment to God, simply because we put other things higher then God. This does not just effect our relationship with our Father in heaven. Malachi calls the people to remember the commitments that they have made with each other. To honor God not just with worship and love, but to also honor him by how we treat those around us. Judah's decision to break their wedding commitment mirrors the way they have broken with God. 

In fact the image of marriage comes up often through out the scriptures. In the end times the church is like a bride, coming to meet her bride groom (God). Our constant inevitable self created distance from God, mirrors the divorce and destruction of marriage in real life. The problem with Commitment isn't commitment, its what we are committed too.

If we are committed to ourselves and our owe thoughts, dreams, ambitions, and fears, we will never feel happiness nor complete. Money, sex, power, technologies, family, children, marriage, alcohol, and whatever else we find important, will never complete us. We can not be completed by created things. However, if we commit to God, something very different takes place. No longer are the things of this earth weighing us down. No longer are our hopes and dreams tied to this created plain. Rather we are lifted to a hope which we have no right too. Jesus commits to God so great a act of worship and honor, that we are given a pure commitment. We are that Bride dressed in white.

Thus our commitment to God brings our love of Him to those around us. No longer can we live in fear or hate. This person, my neighbor, perhaps even my enemy, bears the image of God. All of us created for His Glory. Why would we be unfaithful to each other?

The Reverent Leader

Malachi 2: 1-9 “And now, you priests, this warning is for you. ² If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.

³ “Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. ⁴ And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁵ “My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. ⁶ True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.

⁷ “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.⁸ But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord Almighty.⁹ “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

This passage cuts across time and history in a chilling way. The priests of Malachi’s day might have strayed and lead the people astray, but it didn’t stop with them. In current history the news stories of Catholic priest molesting children, Pastors stealing offering money, and leading their followers to hate have become standards. Collectively we shake our heads and feel outrage at their acts. They are meant to lead us to be better versions of ourselves.

The Lord says that he ‘will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices.’ I can’t imagine a worse humiliation. They have disrespected the Lord, so he will disrespect them. There are a ton of places where God speaks out against false Prophets and bad leaders.

I can understand God's stance. We expect our leaders to be better then ourselves. We expect the hero's we worship to be almost more then human. And yet we enjoy watching others fall, because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Why else would reality TV be so popular? Yet God's displeasure isn't simply because the priest have gone astray, they have lead his people astray. The priest have broken a covenant that God made with Levi. God is calling the leaders of his people to be higher and to not stumble. 

I can’t imagine something more terrifying for someone who is going into ministry. There is a fear of miss representing God. Of leading people astray. Yet their are clues in this passage about what God expects from those who lead. First they are to have reverence for God. Second they are speak 'true instruction'. And finally they are to preserve knowledge. 

Reverence is defined in the dictionary as a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration. And the outward manifestation of this feeling. Levi had a deep reverence for God. And it was because of this reverence that he was blessed by God. If we do not first have a deep understanding of the God we serve and have a deep reverence for him, we can not be effective leaders. If you truely revere God then the thoughts of others mean little. It matters more what God expects. So if God is truly first, then the expectations of others will come second to God's expectations. The Levi's had lost sight of who God was and lost their reverence for God.

From this reverence comes the ability to speak 'true instruction'. True in this sense to be true in reference to God. Truth is a very black and white word. Things are either true or not. God calls his leaders to to speak truth. But its not just truth, this truth is to be instructive to teach. A leader is to teach the respect and awe that they have for God to those around them. They are to lead people in reverence of the Most High. 

Out of this reverence and truth comes a call to preserve knowledge, to remember history. God is calling the leaders to keep the great deeds of His love alive. They are to be taught and past down. They are not to become less real. To preserve something is to keep it forever. The dictionary defines preserve as a way of keeping something alive. To protect from harm or injury. We are to keep faith alive and thriving. To feed it and protect it. To make sure that all know the truth and the word of the Lord. Wit

This is a heavy calling. One that the Levi's in Malachi's day had failed. They were not the first. They are not the last. I just pray that as I lead others that I can remember to first have reverence for God, to speak his truth and finial preserve knowledge of his great love.