In these weeks of Lent, we want to learn how the Chief Parts of the Christian faith teach us and how we use them in our daily lives. Last week we heard how the commandments give us a mirror by which we learn to confess our sins and the blessings the Lord gives us. This week we consider the Apostles' Creed. You can find it on the inside back cover of your hymnal. Let's read it together.... Now if one thing is clear from the example of Eve in the Garden of Eden is that the devil will always try to twist and lie about God's Word to confuse us and lead us into temptation and sin. We need to know what God's Word says simply and clearly. Thankfully, the whole Bible can be summed up in what the Lord is doing for us in the words of the Apostles' Creed. Now of course the Creed isn't IN the Bible word for word. However, every word of the Creed, every statement, is drawn from the Holy Scriptures. You could call the Apostles' Creed the “Cliff Notes” of the Bible, summarizing what the most important things are that we are to know about God. In the Ten Commandments, we learn what the Lord wants us to do. But in the Creed we learn what God has done and still does for us. The Creed then becomes our daily defense against despair and the lies and confusion of the Devil.
All around us, the world operates on the assumptions taught by evolutionary science, that is, everything randomly evolved from something else and there is nothing special about man and nothing intelligent or directed about how all things have worked out. Life and happiness are what YOU make them to be and that's about all there is to this life. The Creed guards and protects us from such a despairing way of thinking by drumming into our ears that God the Father has made all things. He not only made them, but He made them for US, since He is our heavenly Father. And He not only made us but still takes care of us. The Creed pulls together all of the stories of the Lord taking care of His people and providing for them and teaches and reminds us that God is our heavenly Father. Not a disinterested “life force” or a “clockmaker” God who just winds up the world and watches it go. No, our heavenly Father is actively involved in this world to make all things work together for the good of those who love Him. Against all the randomness and lack of purpose and importance that science causes for mankind, the Word of God tells us that God is our Father who loves and provides for us in all things.
We are also surrounded by so many different religions which teach so many different ways to God, yet the world says that all religions get you to God. But all the religions of this world teach US how to get to God. Whether it's living a good life, or following the Five Pillars, or keeping the Torah or being born over and over in this world until you live a good enough life to get out, they all are the same: YOU do something to work it all out. But against this, the Creed declares that we have a Savior. God Himself. The Son of God who became man, was born of Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate—a real, historical person—and died and rose again. The Creed pulls together everything that is most important in the Scriptures about what God has done to save us: coming as a man and dying and rising for us to take away our sins. The Creed teaches us and reminds us that the central, most important thing in our faith and religion is not ourselves but Jesus and what He has done for us. Against the religions of the world that all clamor for our attention and tell us what we have to do, the Creed defines the Christian faith in which it is Jesus, God Himself, who does the suffering, dying, rising and saving. And against all the false and misleading lies of the devil about Jesus, the facts are laid out for us to cling to: He came into this world and truly died and rose and will come again.
The Creed also sets us straight on the Holy Spirit. And we need that since the Holy Spirit is so misunderstood and preached falsely in so many churches. The devil tries to get us to see the Holy Spirit as merely our feelings. So if we want to do something or say something, whatever we feel must be the Holy Spirit, even if it's against God's Word! But against all that, the Creed sets forth what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit, namely, that He works through God's Word to deliver to us the forgiveness of sins in the Christian church. He's all about uniting us in Christ in the communion of saints, making us holy through the forgiveness of sins. The big deal in our life in the church is not strange miracles like so called “speaking in tongues” or some emotional rush. THAT'S not the Holy Spirit. Rather, as the Creed reminds us, the Holy Spirit is all about the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for us delivered in Baptism, the Word and the Sacrament of the Altar. And lest we think that we somehow end up when we die just floating around a spiritual heaven on the clouds, the Creed reminds us that the same Spirit who gives us life in Christ will raise our bodies from the dead and we will have everlasting life.
We could go on and on but you get the point: all of the ideas and notions of the religions and this world that are contrary to God's Word and clearly and simply debunked by the words of the Creed. For ages the church has summarized her faith in the words of the Creed, taking comfort in all that God does for her. Now you and I, we are surrounded daily by news reports and TV shows and books and the internet and other people, all of whom the devil uses to fill our head with doubts and questions and strange ideas and philosophies and wrong notions about God and His Word. That is why we must pray the Creed daily. As the Catechism directs, pray it in the morning, fortifying yourself against the nutty ideas that are out there, hearing the Good News of all that God has done and still does for you as you go out into the world to live your life each day. Then pray it again before bed, flushing your mind and heart of all those ridiculous and wacky notions the devil has tried to plant in your mind and heart that day.
The Bible is a big book, but we should hear it and study it and learn it and grow in it. Yet even as we do, we have its most important teachings laid out for us simply and clearly in the Apostles' Creed. In the Creed we have our daily reminder of who God is and what He has done and still does for us so that the devil cannot deceive us and lead us astray. When we hear something whispered by the devil or shouted by the world, we simply compare it to the Creed and see that it is false and go joyfully on our way, not worrying because God's Word does what it says: it keeps and preserves us in the Christian faith. For after all, we hear the Father made us and takes care of us; the Son saved us and pleads for us; the Spirit makes us holy by the forgiveness of sins and will raise us to life everlasting. The Lord has done all this for us and continues to give us every grace and blessing just as the Creed tells us. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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