"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth." This was the core of our belief as Christians. Today we move to the second great claim of the Apostle’s creed: "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, dead, and buried."

As the creed makes clear, it isn’t just believing in Jesus, Jews, Muslims, and even agnostics, acknowledge that Jesus walked the face of the earth, it is what we believe about Jesus that sets us apart, and identifies us as Christians. First, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Being God’s son means Jesus is God incarnate, God in human form, divine. To believe that Jesus is God’s son is to believe that he is both fully human and fully divine. Hence we believe in the conception by the Holy Spirit and the virgin birth. Now I know there are those who think that the virgin birth is not really all that important, that it’s just a myth and we don’t really need to believe it. They remind us that in the mythologies of Jesus’ day, it was not at all uncommon for gods to come to earth, and the virgin birth was simply the Bible’s way of "Christianizing" the story. Well those folks are simply wrong. Without the virgin birth Jesus is just another human being. The virgin birth establishes that Jesus is not only divine, but is without original sin, that spiritual genetic defect that separates us from God. To believe in the spiritual conception and virgin birth is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Holy One, the Messiah. It is the virgin birth that makes Jesus who he is, the Christ.

The Creed goes on to say that Jesus "suffered under Pontious Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. The trial before Pilate is not only reported in all four gospels, but also by the secular historian of the day, Josephus. After the Jews condemned Jesus in their own court, they brought him before Pilate, who, unlike their courts, had the power to condemn Jesus to death. Pilate was not popular among the Jews; he had certainly given them ample reason to despise him. He had begun his term in office by marching the forbidden and detested Roman standards into the Holy city. It was Pilate who not only hung golden shieldswith the names of Roman gods inscribed on them in the temple, but confiscated soe ofthe temple tax to build an acqueduct. It was before this man that Jesus was brought to be sentenced to death. When Pilate confounded their plans, stating: [14]"You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. [15] Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us; as you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death. [16] Therefore, I will punish him and then release him. " the Jewish leaders responded by turning the crowd against him. The more Pilate tried to free Jesus, the louder the crowd cried: "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Knowing that the people hated him, it is not hard to understand Plate’s fear of the crowd. To prevent an uprising, a riot, Pilate gives in and surrenders Jesus to their will.

MK 15:25 It was the third hour when they crucified him. [26] The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. [27] They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. [29] Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, [30] come down from the cross and save yourself!"

MK 15:31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! [32] Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. MK 15:33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. [34] And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

MK 15:35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah." MK 15:36 One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said.

MK 15:37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

Jesus was dead. Not asleep, no in a trance, not in a coma, but dead, stone cold dead. Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish council, went to Pilate and asked for the body. Normally the bodies of those crucified were left hanging as a deterrant to others. But in this case, because Jesus didn’t really deserve to die, and because it was the Day of Preparation, the day before the Sabbath, Pilate, after erifying with the Centurion in charge of the execution that Jesus was already dead, consented to the burial. Being a cautious man, however, Matthew reports that Pilate had the tomb guarded and secured.

Unlike Paul, who unhesitatingly preached "Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles," this has always been the hardest part of the story for me. Like Pilate, I do not see any reason for Jesus’ death. Under the law of Moses, sin demanded a blood sacrifice, but Jesus had no sin. Unlike you and I, he was conceived, born, and lived without sin. Because he was without sin, without blemish, he became the final atoning sacrifice. His blood fulfilled the demands of the law, so that you and I can have forgiveness and salvation. The writer of Hebrews tells us: "Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people;".

Ronald Reagan sums it up for us:" Meaning no disrespect to the religious convictions of others, I still can't help wondering how we can explain away what to me is the greatest miracle of all and which is recorded in history. No one denies there was such a man, that he lived and that he was put to death by crucifixion. ..

A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father's shop. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father's shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside, walking from place to place, preaching all the while, even though he is not an ordained minister. He does this for three years. Then he is arrested, tried and convicted. There is no court of appeal, so he is executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing -- the only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place for him so he is interred in a borrowed tomb. End of story? No, this uneducated, propertyless young man who...left no written word has, for 2000 years, had a greater effect on the world than all the rulers, kings, emperors; all the conquerors, generals and admirals, all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who have ever lived -- all of them put together. How do we explain that?...unless he really was who he said he was."

"I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried." Because I believe that Christ was crucified, dead, and buried, I am opened to receive the promise of salvation and eternal life. The death of Jesus opens us to life with God.

How about you? Do you want salvation? Do you want life with God? Do you believe in Jesus? Now is your chance, here is the place. If you are ready to accept Jesus as your Lord, your Savior, I invite you to come forward. Come, as we rise and sing together no. 297, "Beneath the Cross of Jesus." Come and believe, come and profess, come and claim God’s promises for your own. Come, the crucified Christ is waiting.

AMEN.

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Over the next weeks, in the period between Epiphany and Lent, I will be preaching about what we believe as Christians. I have chosen, as an outline, The Apostle's Creed, first, because in just 105 words it states the basic beliefs to which we, along with almost all Christians, hold. The creed states the beliefs that unite us together in the faith.

Several weeks ago, as I was planning this series, Regis Peregrin, (of the Carus congregation) told a story. She said she was sitting at a banquet of some sort, when a gentleman at the table was asked if he was a Christian.

" Yes." he replied.
" What do you believe?"

" 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 to the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

" I believe int eh 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 a wonderful way to answer the question! One I hope more and more of us will be comfortable using. Let us then look at what we believe, and what it means to believe it.

" I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth." This is the core belief on which the rest of our faith rests. Without a belief in God, there is not Christianity, for it is from God that all else emanates.

Carl Sagan claimed that the earth we call home is nothing more than an insignificant planet circling and insignificant star, in an insignificant galaxy in a dark backwater of the universe. Not much room for hope there! But the Bible promises us something more. The Bible assures us that

(GE 1:1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And that same God also created us, male and female, in that same image.

William S. Weed tells us that:

" Earth is a Goldilock's kind of place: Not too hot, not too cold. Things her are just right. We have a solid rock to stand on, liquid water to sustain s, and an atmosphere to shield us from radiation. Our cozy planet happens to lie just the right distance from the sun, in what astronomers call the habitable zone...

Within our just-right galaxy, we also live in a just right spot, about halfway out from the center--not too far in, not too far out....

Here in our solar system, in a just right spot, around a just right star, our Goldilock's planet runs laps around the sun in a nearly circular orbit always staying 93 million miles from the fire."

An accident? Not likely. Those who will not accept the existence of God, say that belief in God is nothing more than superstition, that faith is irrational, and therefore not real. Karen Armstrong, on the other hand, writes that, as long ago as the eleventh century, Judah Halevi pointed out that God cannot be proved rationally; that did not mean that fath in God was irrational, but simply that a logical demonstration of his existence had no religious value These same deniers tell us that:'In the beginning there was nothing, and it exploded." Now I don't know about you, but for me that's much harder to believe, and far more irrational, than " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." To claim that all existence is an accident is to deny that life has any purpose, meaning, future, or hope. Uncreated life exists only to exist.

Those who believe in God, on the other hand, know that life has purpose, meaning, and hope. To believe in God is to know that we are not accidents, but intentionally created persons of worth.

It is true that I cannot give you " scientific" proof of the existence of God.. I can, however, give you evidence of God, evidence of a God who not only created us, but who loves and cares for and about us. Evidence like this. (wriggle finger) Do you have any idea what such a simple action requires? First, there must be the conscious ability to think of wriggling my finger. Then there is the transformation of that thought into electrical impulses that can be transmitted through the nervous system, and finally, the muscular-skeletal system that makes the movement possible. An accident? Not likely.

If that's not enough, I give you last Tuesday morning. Libbi hit a patch of black ice and ended up colliding with Philis Schmidt. She suffered some injures that keep her from being with us this morning, but she is alive and well. And if you had seen the car, you would wonder how. But perhaps what didn't happen is just as much evidence of God's car and intervention into our lives. Libbi's car came to rest just 6 feet from the edge of a silage pit. Had her care kept sliding in the direction it was going, she would have fallen 12 to fifteen feet to the concrete floor of that empty pit! The auto accident reconstructors will talk about motion, resistance, drag, and that sort of thing, but as for me: " I'll praise my maker while I've breath..."

" I believe in God, the Father Almighty..." I believe God is omnipotent, all powerful. I believe that not only did God create us, but that God created us to love and know God as a parent. In a world where fathers are portrayed as either bumpkins or family killers, this can be hard to grasp. But when we characterize God as a father, it is a father in the purest sense of the word; a father whose devotion is to his children, a father who looks out for and protects his children. A father who provides for his children's needs, physically, spiritually, emotionally. A God who created us to love and know Him as we love and know our earthly parents. And now, we learn that just as love of our earthly parents is instinctive, so is our desire to know God. Using a technology called SPECT, scientists scanned the brains of Franciscan nuns as they engaged in deep, contemplative prayer. When they studied scans of the left parietal lobe, the part of the brain that draws the line between physical self and the rest of creation, they found that, at peak moments of prayer, when the subjects were most " connected" to God, that portion of the brain was deprived of the neural information needed to separate self from the world; a deprivation that allows us to experience a sense limitless awareness. In short, our brains are wired to connect to God. An accident? Not likely.

God, who created us in his own image; who created us to be connected to him, who created us to be loved by him, wants nothing more than to love us completely. But complete love cannot be one way. Love, by its very nature, must be reciprocated to be complete. If God's love is unrequited, it is incomplete. Consequently, if you are not feeling fully loved by God, perhaps it is because you have not loved God. In spite of the fact that you are wired to love God, you still have free will: you are not required to love God. But when you choose to love the God who created you, when you love the one who loves you, God's love becomes complete. And when we live in the complete love of God, we know what it means to be " children of God."

Won't you join the family?

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Today is the last day of Christmas. After our open house this afternoon, it will be time to unplug the lights, take down the Christmas tree, and put it all away until next year. Time to move on. And that, in a way, is what Epiphany is all about...moving on, moving toward the One who has been born.

MT 2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem [2] and asked, " Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. "

As I was reading the story of the Magi, the wise men, this week, it occurred to me how much like many of our lives, their story is. They saw the star, the star that announced the coming of God's son, and they responded by coming to him. Think about that for just a moment. The One who comes from God to save us, waits for us to come to him. Christ does not force himself upon us, but, rather, makes himself available to us.

JN 1:10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. [11] He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

It's a two way street, Christ comes to us, and we, like the Magi, come to him. One of my favorite Gospel songs, and one of the first I learned to play on the mandolin, is " I Saw the Light. "

" I saw the light! I saw the light! no more darkness, no more night,
Now I'm so happy, no sorrow in sight,
Praise the Lord, saw the light! "

Saul discovered this on the road to Damascus, when, out of a bright light, Christ cried out to him, and I would suggest that many of us have had similar experiences. Eric Chism tells of his " Epiphany ":

" Some five years ago I was the editor of a small daily newspaper here in Missouri. I'd spent my entire adult life in either broadcast or print news. Several faith experiences led me into a sense of " there's gotta be something more to life. "

During a spiritual gifts assessment course, one of the questions toward the end of the course was, " If you knew you could not fail, what would you do. " I answered the pastor by saying something like, " Well, I think I would preach. "

After the final course session Larry pulled me aside and mentioned that a small country church in a neighboring county was looking for a supply minister. The area minister had just that day asked Larry (my pastor) if anyone in the congregation was interested in preaching at Elkland Christian Church. Elkland is a small unincorporated community.

I replied, " No, you don't understand. I think I'm supposed to preach 'someday' "

I went home that night extremely confused and more than little afraid. Our oldest daughter picked up on Dad's mood and asked what was wrong. I explained everything that had happened, and we even got out a state map to find tiny Elkland. Emily (who was 10 at the time) said, " Dad, have you tried reading Psalm 91? " We got out her bible and read it together, and the verses really spoke to me. I asked her why she suggested that psalm and she said, " Oh, it was just on my mind. "

" Emily, you're 10 years old. Psalm 91 wasn't just 'on your mind' "

" Yes it was, " " No it wasn't " . . . yada yada

Finally, " Well dad when we were at summer church camp a couple of weeks ago, the boys came over and tried to scare all of us girls in the middle of the night. Our cabin counselor read us Psalm 91. I got a card from here today and she wrote, " Remember Psalm 91. Her name is Judy, oh, and Dad, she's from Elkland. "

I no longer edit newspapers or sit behind a microphone. February 4 will mark the fifth anniversary of the Chism family serving Elkland Christian Church. " Such stories are not uncommon. Many of those who have been called by and responded to God can tell you the day, time, place, and circumstances.

But what of those who have no such story? Is their experience any less valid? No, of course not. Indeed, for most of us, that may well be the norm. Baptized as infants, brought to church as children, we grew up in the Sunday School and youth group, went through confirmation, and have simply always been Christians. We have been following the star for so long, we cannot imagine any other way of living.

Both experiences are valid, and both are real. What matters is not when you started, but that you follow the star, that you come closer to where the child is, that you seek the one who is the Christ. For it is in coming to Christ that we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, whom God sends. This is the baptism of which John the Baptizer says " : [8] " I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. "

The Magi looked at the sky and saw a star, a star that signaled a new king; a star that signaled a new beginning; a star that signaled a savior. They followed the star " until it stopped over the place where the child was. [10] When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. [11] On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. "

The Magi brought their gifts to the Christ. Christ now brings his gifts to us, the gifts of bread and wine, the gift of his body and blood, the gift of his life, given for us, that the promise of the ages might be fulfilled. It is in coming to Christ that we claim that promise; the promise of forgiveness; the promise of unconditional love; the promise of salvation; the promise of eternal life; for our own. Come, follow the star. Come, the table is set. Come, and claim the promise. Come and be fed. Come and be whole. Come and claim the one who claims you.

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This Is My Father's World

The space for this web site has been provided courtesy of the General Board of Global Ministeries, The United Methodist Church.
The content of these pages is the responsibility of Regis Peregrin, member of Carus United Methodist Church.
Please send feeback to carus_um@gbgmchurches.gbgm-umc.org
Created November 16, 2002 ; Last updated, January 20, 2003