What’s Really Important

 December 2, 2020

Something very strange happens in the Creed after the mention of the virgin birth of Jesus. His entire life and ministry is passed over as if it never happened. There is no dearth of apocryphal gospels and fanciful accounts of the "hidden years" of Jesus, and we have the Biblical record of the Gospels that fill us in concerning the approximately three years of his public ministry, but all this is omitted in the Creed which jumps from the virgin birth to his suffering under Pontius Pilate. Since this creed is a recitation of that which was considered essential to Christian faith for the purposes of catechal teaching and baptism, the absence of any detail of Jesus' life is instructive. While not unimportant, by comparison with the assertion of Jesus' divine origin safeguarded by the virgin birth and his sacrificial death at the hands of a Roman procurator, the ministry of Jesus definitely takes a back seat. It is his passion, death, and resurrection that provides the means of our salvation, not his ministry.

It is also important that our salvation is grounded in historical reality rather than mythical imagination. While there are mythic dimensions to our faith (mythic being understood as that which has universal application), our story has its roots in a definite time and place in history. It is not enough that we have eternal principles by which we live; it is in flesh and blood history that Jesus came, it is in flesh and blood history he works today, and it will be to flesh and blood history that he returns. We don't live by a set of rules or ideals, but by our allegiance to a Man who was born, lived, and died among people like Herod, Caesar Augustus, and Pontius Pilate. This historical context elevates Christian faith above the level of one’s personal experiences and emotions, anchoring it firmly in a specific time and place. My faith is more than my feelings, which come and go; it is rooted in the reality of what God did in the Person and Work of this Man, Jesus Christ. I am grateful tonight that my salvation is more than following certain principles, living out the seven habits of highly successful people, or working through the latest self-help book. Salvation is in the Name of Jesus Christ who didn't give us principles by which to order our lives, but gave us Life itself. The Virgin Birth points to the Divine Miracle of life which the Passion and Death of Jesus accomplished.