Apostle's Creed: Ascended, Seated, & perfect in Judgement.

Another long spell between posts. This has become a habit I'm afraid. I am working on a novel. But there is also three different knitting projects, a long lingering cold, and the stress of work to blame. I have, I fear, found myself living on the surface while I wallow in darkness struggling against my flesh (most on that later).

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

I sat in the dark church gathering the darkness. The last bits of the setting sun glancing through the colors of the stain glass in the church. The carpet is red, and in the gloom blood colored. The alter where candles normally light the grace of our forward facing eyes, is covered in black cloth. Placed on the stairs leading up to that black drenched table, is a cross. Its wood is rough, a row of nails is set half driven into the flesh of its length. A hammer lays on the top step full on malice, because I know what it is for. This is the Good Friday service of my childhood. 

I looked back at the giant window, in which the figure of Christ, stands his hands open walking forward. He seems to beacon while he moves, drawing you upward. During sunday mornings his face is peaceful, full of grace. His hands show the wounds of his pain, this is our Lord in his glory. But at night the face disappeared as if the window makers had thought to make him faceless for his death. This death that we practice ever year. Punctuating the night is the sound of the hammer: a passage is read, a character turns away from the Lord, a nail is pounded, banged into the flesh of the cross in corse bitterness. 

As a child I found it easier to understand this Christ, the one who goes willingly to death. I understood death, had touched the cold lifeless hand of my great grandmother as she lay on white sheets in her final bed. I had watched death take animals and plants. I knew more of this death then my parents could understand. Christ the son of God sent to death. 

However, as I have grown back towards that childhood faith, I find it isn't the Christ of death that I cling to. I cling to the Christ of the living. In childhood the fact of his death held finite importance, the fact that he would have died for me, a strange wonder. Now I linger on the reality of his life after death. He leaves the form which he presents to his followers, wounded and light filled. He is gathered up into the heavens, leaving his followers with a promise of a coming fire. It is the glory of his place next to the father that I prostrate before. The judge who will divide the goats from the sheep. The Son of Men, who took my place and writes my name in the book of life. 

The glory of God is strange and wonderful. It is what makes me tremble, seeing the life promised beyond that death I learned of early in my life. I had to learn, am still learning, the daily death of my sin before the throne of God. I am reminded, shuttering, that I am a fleeting flower quick to bloom and quicker to pass away. Still I seek this death to that which is death to my soul, in seeking the life of his glory. "We are therefore buried with him through baptism into the death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live in new life." (Romans 6:4)

Without his death there can be no raising. Without his life there is now freedom from that which he died to. Without his glory, there is no hope in the future of being in that glory with him. In this glory I dance in my spirit, knowing this hard crumbling form will someday be perfect within him. 

Returning to This Whole Blog Thing... (And dealing with Fear)

So obviously I am struggling with writing on this blog. But to be honest it isn't the blog, it is my devotions in general. They are haunted, ghosts and memories of thoughts, which I remember. I see them from afar, but I can't seem to touch them. I haven't given them flesh and blood for what feels like an age. So here is my return to devotion. I plan to finish my look at the apostle's creed, but at the moment I have other thoughts in my head, other words I would like to share. 

I wrote this piece last night. I was stuck in the narrow space between hardness and rock. I apologies if its a little rambling. 

Ps 144: 1-4
'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me. O Lord, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow."

Ps 145: 1-5
'I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.'

I was unready for the battle. Napping, I was napping. I had spent the morning lazy, trying to keep my dreams long after my body was awake. I had risen late and gone to work. Menial work. Cleaning the bathroom not because I like to clean, but to feel some realness. To feel some sense of accomplishment. My mind seemed stuck else where, some place dark. I was unready for battle.

I eat lunch late, suddenly realizing that I was late to eat by three hours. My body telling me its blood sugar was low. My motivation dwindling, my mind already returning to dream. Tracing familiar fantasies, unwilling to deal with reality. I choose to return to my mind, to my dreams. To sleep away the long daylight hours.

I was awoken by a phone ring: a bugle calling out the march.

I was unready for the battle, but it came none the less. A voice, a call of deep overwhelming need. Reality. Blood in teeth, sweaty palms holding a blade, a slap across the face, all my dreamed battles. The real one is different, deeper, harder, bound to undo me. My heart falls. My soul cries out.

That voice. The voice of a friend I have long called sister. The voice of a soul seeking relief from a pain caused by memory. I tremble, keep my words even, but I am already destroyed. My heart is bleeding. Every pore expels pain. This voice, this sister who can so easily draw me, quarter me. I feel her grief. Know without being told her pain. I enter the battle to stand helpless at her side.

All my depression, all my thoughtless dreams, I build like realities to guard me. Even the little faith I cling to seems unable to keep at bay the on-slaw. My words steady. But once the phone is down and the sister voice removed by miles of space, I am helpless. The fear. This slithering thing which I hold at arms length, comes coiling up my arm, to weave itself thru me. To choke me, pull me under. The storm releases through my eyes. Its thunder my sobs, shacking me, tossing me. I am a boat with out anchor. A tumble weed loose in a cyclone. A warrior shieldless, armor-less, and sword-less, standing in the fiery breath of a dragon.

I was unready for the battle. Removed by miles of road, and car-less. I can not venture to find that sister voice. I can not reach her through electronical pulses, satilights, singels. You can't hold the crying form of a friend through the internet. And my words seem empty, voiceless. I know not what to say. My heart screams a silent prayer. Tumbles into a avilanch of emotions. 'God please' the prayer of the helpless. 'God help' the prayer of the needy. 'God why?' The prayer of the faithless.

I have felt this anger before. 'Why?' I want to cry, gasping, grasping for something real. God always seems so near in those moments. Yet never without his veil. To feel, but not touch. My anger mixes with my fear as the wine in my mouth mixes with my saliva. I'm drinking to numb myself to the fear. And it is the fear I dread. The endless relentless wave which pounds against my sea wall. The searching fingers of water which seeks every crack, to enlarge, to flood.

'God' I cry. My every fiber seeking that endless being. My little faith, the small stretched rope on which I walk. I return to the words of David. 'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands to war, my fingers to battle.' I wonder at those words. I pour them out and over my angry hot coal heart. 'He is my loving god and my fortress.' I shiver. Dare to climb inside those words. Seek the assurance of that God. The God who called creation to being. I crawl into His reality and claim his shield my own. His rock my foot hold.

The fear is now a braying dog at the door. Ferocious but outside. I lean on the door, pressing myself against its grain. Stay out, stay out. And I pray. Thoughts not words. I have no words. Only knowledge that in him, all will be right. That he holds in reality, that sister voice I can only touch through technology. That he holds what is true. And I write what I hope and pray. To think. To exist outside of myself. I'm halfway through a second glass of wine, still terrified. I cling foolishly, but with abandon, to the truth which David sung all those thousands of years ago: 'I will exalt you, my God the King: I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. His greatness no on can fathom.' 'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands to war, my fingers to battle.'

I was unprepared for battle. I was unready, taken by surprise in fear.  But I shall write this and pray my heart will read it as truth: The Lord is Love. He loves me deeply. He loves my sister friend as much and better then I could. He is well prepared for the battle. He has already fought the war and won. He is the rock on which my feet find rest. He is the sword in my hand, the shield on my arm, the fortress sourounding me. 'Man is like breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow' But the Lord is without end, without beginning. He is a God who created and knows all things. He is, thus I am delivered.

I was unready for the battle. But the one who stands with me is great, his love surpasses understanding. His greatness, beyond knowledge. His love, unending. I was unready for the battle, but the God of the universe has already won it for me. And my friend, this sister voice, is held within his great loving hand. Whom, What, Shall I fear?

He Arose

I apologies for the long spell of silence on my end. I am forever getting caught up in the bustle of the world and pulled in a million directions. Recently I finished a couple of short devotional for my church's advent devotional. I'll share those one the whole thing has been published. For now I'll continue with the Apostle's 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

What makes Christianity so different? So special? C. S. Lewis wrote: "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." So if true why is it of infinite importance? That on 'The third day He arose again from the dead.' 

So many people look at Christ and see a Good man. One who's speech of love and mercy give warmth and little else. Christ's life and death mean little by themselves. All live and all die. But to rise from teh dead is abnormal, if not impossible. And it is this impossiblity or miracle, that takes Christ from a man to God. Having suffered the death of our sin and true separation from God. Christ goes to hell and returns with the keys to the gate. 

Every Good Friday my parent's home church sings a hymn which always chills me to the bone. 'Were you there when they Crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they laid him in the Tomb?' The questions always cut across my realization that I take part in the death of Christ. That it is my sin that kept him on the cross, not the nails. 'Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.' But the hymn doesn't end with Christ being left in the tomb. There will be no worms in his flesh, no maggots. No the hymn ends with another question: 'Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?' 

This is what rests at the center of my belief and understanding of God. That he is not just another victim of this world's darkness, but rather a victor over death itself. 'Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.' 

A Little Creative Writing: I have stood...

I wrote this today and wanted to share it with all of you. It's not really related to one scripture or even the Apostles' creed, which I will return to next post. It was more of a thought or image that I had at work and I had to write it. 

I have stood at the pinnacle at the center of the city's heart. I have felt the beat of that air deprived expanse. The life blood of this city is lies and crumbling facades. The beautiful destruction of souls and the degradation of the flash, mix with the self surveilled multitude.  The grime, which can’t be washed off with water, clings to builds, people, and hearts. And people slow dig their graves in the bowels of lust and false hope. We build our pedestals on others. And make our own selves the pedestals on which we place those who we would worship. And we worship daily, becoming zombies in front of our laptops and flat screens.

I have stood at the pinnacle of what makes us great: all our flesh and mighty dreams. I have felt the coming wind of our desolation. I have seen from afar the brutal hurricane which will destroy this look out. We have decided to be the city in the valley, a shadowed, crumbling mess. We weren’t called to this perpetual falling. We weren’t designed to keep falling down. I have stood at the pinnacle and known the deepest pain and seen only the coming of deep night. I stand there no longer.

The pinnacle of men’s desirers is forever to be higher. To set ourselves beyond the grime of our dirt made flesh.  I have knocked down my pedestal and claimed the clay my brethren. I have met the grime and feed it. I have seen the red eyes of broken lives and the slobbering mouths of the hopeless. They are my brothers. I have sat with the short skirted women, whose faces are no longer pretty and knelt with the track marked rattled bodies of the unsatisfied. They are my sisters. In the shadow of the pinnacle, I have found the face of God. And that shadow making tower, has become an ant hill of foolish wrath.

No longer will I seek to compete with God’s great wonders: to build my own small tower among the many others. No longer will I seek a pedestal on which to demand worship. I will worship on my knees with my fellow clay and dust. I will sing a hallelujah along with my brothers and sisters. We will seek the face of our salvation in the grime of the forgotten. The bones of the dead themselves will dance with us, for death is no longer binding. I have stood at the pinnacle of all the horrible glories of human desire. I will stand there no longer.

Apostles' Creed: Man and God

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

Belief in God is all well and good, but what really distinguishes Christians from the rest of the religions is our belief in Christ. All other religions give various ways in which to come to God or find heaven. Normally it is through deeds, sacrifices, prayers, meditations. Christianity is the only religion in which the way to God is God himself. Namely Jesus, the son. If Jesus isn't in the picture then we have nothing. 

Christ's position as God son makes him high enough to actual save us. While Christ's position as a son of Mary, means that he understands the reason we need saving, because he had live like us. More then that he suffered the death that we were meant to die. Without Christ being fully human and fully God, there is no divine salvation, nor human understanding. 

I could get into the impossibility of a Virgin giving birth, of God taking up the flesh-clay of his creation, and the impossibility of one man being both God and man. But I don't have the words to convince someone of those things. I believe them because there is part of me that understands the impossibility and still believes. Because if Christ is not a man, there is no way that he could suffer and understand death. And likewise, if Christ is not God, how could he have any say or power over my life? Christianity needs a God who is willing to sacrifice his only son to save the willful flash-clay of his creation. Christ is like an author who writes him/herself into their book. The characters in the book only know the author by what the author writes of them-self. The Author is the only one in the book who has the power to write the story and understand fully the lives and choices of the characters. 

The power of Christ is in the duality in being God and Man. As a man he walked the earth. As a man he ate, lived, loved, befriended, helped, served, and lead others who shared that flesh-clay. But unlike us fallen creatures who have turned from our potter, Christ was a pure image of God. Christ's ability to perfectly love and know the heart of men (and women), meant that he spoke into our flesh-clay what would truly give us life. So often people see God as a judge, in the way we think of judges here on earth. A slap of a gravel and we are off to jail or worse. But God's judgement comes from his love for all that he creates. And Christ took that judgement so that we could be free from it. So when we look on Christ we see the one who having know the Father and seen the face of the Father, took the Father turning his face away, felt the complete separation from the Father, so that we would never have too. The beauty of Christ is his ability to bridge the gap between our fallen crumbling flesh-clay and the glorious restoration that is God. 

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)