Sometimes a single line is worth the price of the whole book. Way back in another lifetime, an odd set of circumstances landed me in a liberal United Methodist Seminary, quite a contrast from my independent Baptist upbringing and Wesleyan Methodist collegiate experience. I felt back then and still do today that most of my seminary education was a waste of time. Except for that single line. It came in the form of a question written in red ink on a paper I wrote for a Systematic Theology class taught by Dr. Paul Hessert. I couldn't tell you the name of any other professor I had, which tells you something about the impression they, and Dr. Hessert by comparison, had on me.
If you wanted to know the subject of that paper I'd have to dig through my files to find it, but I can tell you the exact wording of Dr. Hessert's question: "When you say 'God,' what do you mean?" No one had so brazenly challenged my assumptions before. He followed up that question with a statement. "I want to know what you mean by 'God,' not what someone else has written." His question began a process in me that continues to this day of carefully choosing the religious words I use. I've discovered that there are plenty of preachers who throw words around without considering what they really mean.
The Apostles' Creed begins by affirming faith in "God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." I wrote yesterday concerning the first words of the Creed. Tonight I've been thinking of the second phrase in this beginning declaration of faith. It is important that we do so, because we aren't here merely talking about the weather or the latest sports scores, but about what moves us, what remains when all else in life is removed. When that happens, we had better know what we really believe.
When I declare that I believe in God, the Father Almighty, I am by implication declaring also my faith in Jesus Christ, since God is our Father only because he is first the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who taught us that God is our Father; we are his children secondarily, because we are "in" Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn, the only begotten Son of God. Those words are highly charged, and would require volumes to begin to unpack their significance, but for tonight, it is enough to know that it is by virtue of our being in Christ that God is our Father.
The Creed goes on to say that this God/Father is the Maker of heaven and earth. The Nicene Creed states this a bit differently when it says he created things visible and invisible. We tend to think of heaven as being in the same physical category as earth, but St. Paul's use of the language in his letter to the Ephesians suggests otherwise. The "heavens" is the realm where God rules uncontested. They are that part of creation that we cannot see, but which is as real as physical matter. It is where angels and archangels...and the demonic spirits dwell.
When the Creed says that God made all this, it means among other things, that he stands outside of it all. He is not subject to it, but rules over it. At those times in life when it seems no one is minding the store, to know that God made all that is, both visible and invisible, is reassuring. Heaven and earth declare God's glory, revealing in part his character, but they are not to be worshipped because they like us, are finite. Our God, the Father Almighty, made all that is, and as Maker, stands outside of it, all of which is subject to his eternal purposes that are wrapped up in Jesus Christ. All of which tells me that if I keep centered on Christ, all will be well. And for that, I am truly thankful tonight.
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