Amen.

I began this series on the Nicene Creed with two questions: What does the Creed say about the Christian God? And, What does this say about Christian spirituality? Today, as I wrap this series up, I’d like to bring the pieces together and see just what the road of faith the Creed maps out looks like.

As Christians, we believe in — we trust and build our lives upon, both as a community and as individuals:

• One God: At the heart of everything is an underlying unity, big and wide enough to encompass all of our divisions and diversity, and before which all of our opinions and concepts fall away.
  • The Father Almighty: This God’s character is revealed to us as an “Almighty Father,” but whose might is revealed as a humble, self-offering love on behalf of and in support of those he loves, and whose fatherhood is infinite in scope and limitless in love, welcoming us all into his adoptive household and family
  • The Creator of Heaven and Earth…: This same loving Father made the universe out of loving intention. Everything, seen and unseen, is therefore connected in its one creator, manifests the Word of God, and is enlivened by the Spirit of God.
• And in One Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God…: Our one God also exists from all eternity in God’s Son, Wisdom or Word, who is divine with the same divinity as the Father. For us and for our salvation:
  • He came down from heaven…: This eternal Son came down and was born, lived and died as one of us, as the man Jesus of Nazareth, modeling for us once and for all the humility and self-offering love of God
  • He suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried: This humble way of life put Jesus at odds with the religious and secular authorities and he died as an enemy of the state. But:
  • On the third day he rose again: God vindicated the Suffering Servant, Jesus, by raising him from the dead. He ascended into heaven…, where he sits at the Father’s right hand and advocates for us and defends us. He will come again… to judge the world and set everything to rights.
• And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life…: Our one God also exists from all eternity in the Holy Spirit, who brings life to everything in creation and empowers us to live out our lives and vocations faithfully in Christ. This faithful, Spirit-led life is lived out in community, which we know as the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We participate in this community through:
  • One baptism for the forgiveness of sins, which unites us to this community committed to living the way of Jesus;
  • The resurrection of the dead, by which God’s faithful will be ultimately vindicated, just as Jesus was vindicated; and
  • The life of the coming age, in which we will know God’s Kingdom immediately and participate fully in its abundant life.

Inasmuch as this is the God in whom we believe and around whom we build our lives, this has clear consequences for what our lives should look like:

• Even as we see life in this world as full of ups and downs and battles between good and evil, beneath it all, we trust that there is unity and goodness at the heart of things.
• We accept that there is far more to the world than we can ever know or understand and are unafraid of saying “I don’t know” and trusting that God is big enough to hold what we don’t understand or can’t bring together.
• As much as we can, we live our lives following the humble example of Jesus of Nazareth and take on his concern for the sick, the downtrodden, and marginalized as our own.
• We live knowing that following Jesus’ way will put us into conflict with ‘the ways of this world’ but that God will ultimately vindicate us just as God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead. We trust that God’s justice is not the false, power-hungry justice of ‘law and order’ but the justice of compassion, reconciliation, and new beginnings.
• We commit ourselves to living out our personal and shared callings through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• We commit ourselves to living in and for the community of faith (even as we know it will always disappoint us on this side of glory).
• We trust that, no matter what it may look like, this challenging way of life will be worth it in the end.

To all of this, whenever we recite the Creed, we say “Amen.” Amen, Amen, Amen.