1.
Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our
Redeemer. Amen. We’ve traveled one week so far on our Lenten
journey. I hope you’re profiting from reading Luther’s Small and Large
Catechisms. A few years ago, a Lutheran
pastor was in a serious car accident returning home from a short trip. Seat belts
and air bags saved his life, but nothing could save his car. The pastor’s
insurance wasn’t enough for a new car, but it was enough to buy an older model
with heated seats! With delight the pastor imagined the first cold winter day
that he would turn on those heated seats and live in luxury! But, the pastor was disappointed when winter
came and he got into the car to push the button. No heat! He determined that
the next summer he’d check the wiring and the fuses. Sometime later, the pastor managed to push a
button by mistake. The seat began to heat. He was so excited he found his son
and told him, “This is great!” I
showed him how I’d turned on the seats. He said, “Oh, I knew how to do that.” This
was a great revelation to the pastor. The only thing wrong with his car was his
ignorance. Ignorance of heated car seats is a silly thing. Unfortunately, in
today’s culture, it’s not so silly that people often are proud of their
religious ignorance. The consequences can be serious. Many are ignorant about the Apostles’
Creed—both about why we use it and about its content. Rather than ignorance,
let’s be sure we know, what’s in a Creed
Anyway?
2.
Our American
Christian culture is mainly non-creedal. It believes there’s something wrong if
you declare, “This I believe” when
speaking of the Creed. One group says “deeds,
not creeds.” Another says, “It’s my
freedom to believe what I want. Don’t tell me what to believe.” It’s tempting to buy into this culture and
say, “It doesn’t really matter what
anyone else says about the Bible. The only thing that matters is what it means
to me.” People develop strange ideas about the Bible when they abandon the
creeds of the Church. They become pleased with their ignorance.
3.
Did you know
that the Bible contains creeds? Our text today is an early creed. Paul quotes
it to the Corinthians: “For I delivered
to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our
sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised
on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3–4). Doesn’t
that sound similar to the Apostles’ Creed?
The creeds have been part of the foundation of Christian teaching for
over 1,500 years. We use the three ecumenical creeds because they summarize the
Bible’s teachings.
4.
I’ve had the
privilege to read St. Augustine, and I can relate to him because he taught the
catechism every year. Just as we’re doing, Augustine would teach the catechism
during Lent. Part of his instruction was the Apostles’ Creed. (See William
Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate [Collegeville, MN: The
Liturgical Press, 1995].) By Augustine’s day, around AD 400, Christian
instruction using the Apostles’ Creed already had been taking place for about
two hundred years. As we meditate on our Christian faith as confessed by saints
throughout the ages and reflected in the Apostles’ Creed, we’re in good company.
For this reason Martin Luther identified the Creed as a chief and important
part of Christian doctrine. The Creed is
divided into three parts, concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Did you notice that this is how our Readings were divided today—the Old
Testament Reading primarily about the Father, the Epistle primarily about the
Son, and the Gospel especially about the Holy Spirit?
5.
The first
Reading was creation: “In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and
darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over
the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was
light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from
the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And
there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Gen 1:1–5). Before
God said, “Let there be light,” there
never had been a day before.
6.
Martin Luther
did something interesting with the First Article of the Creed. He made it
personal. Asking, “What does this mean?” he answers, “I believe that God has made me and all
creatures; that He has given me my body and soul . . .” And he still takes
care of me today! There was a time—an
evening and a morning—when you had your first day. Do you know who gave that
first day to you? God did. God the Father gave you your first day. Luther says in the Large Catechism, “If you were to ask a little child, ‘My
dear, what sort of a God do you have? What do you know about Him?’ The child
would say, ‘This is my God: first, the Father, who has created heaven and
earth. Besides this One only, I regard nothing else as God. For there is no one
else who could create heaven and earth’ ” (LC II 11). Later he says, “This is what I mean and believe, that I am
God’s creature. . . . I mean that He has given and constantly preserves . . .
for me my body, soul, and life, my members great and small, all my senses,
reason, and understanding, and so on” (LC II 13).
7.
Unfortunately
many people only know the God of nature, the God of creation, the God of power
& might, the God of hurricanes and tornadoes, the God of lightning and
floods. The First Article ought to humble and terrify us all, Luther says, “if we believed it. For we sin daily . . .
with eyes, ears, hands, body and soul, money and possessions, and with
everything we have” (LC II 22). Our sin offends the Creator. It’s a
wonderful blessing that the Creed goes on to teach about the Son, the Second
Person of the Holy Trinity.
8.
In the First
Article of the Creed, you learn that God gives you all that you have. In the
Second Article of the Creed, you find out that God gives you all that he is.
Luther says, “He completely poured forth
Himself . . . and withheld nothing from us” (LC II 26). God gave you all he is
when he gave his only-begotten Son. I
believe “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,
died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from
the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father
Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.” These
are wonderful facts of history. Luther makes it personal. He says. “What
does this mean? I believe that Jesus
Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born
of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.”
9.
Some people
will say, “Jesus is Lord. You must make Jesus the Lord of your life; make him
the boss of your heart.” But here’s what Luther says: “I believe that Jesus Christ, God’s true Son, has become my Lord. But
what does it mean to become Lord? It
is this: He has redeemed me from sin, from the devil, from death, and from all
evil. . . . Let this, then, be the sum of this article: the little word Lord means simply the same as redeemer” (LC II 27, 31). If Jesus hadn’t died on the cross, do you
know who your Lord would be? Sin, death, and the devil. For Jesus to be your
Lord isn’t something that you do. It isn’t putting Jesus on the throne of your
heart. It is Jesus stretching out his hands and allowing himself to be nailed
to the cross. For “He has redeemed me, a
lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and
the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with His holy precious
blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” When he has become my
Lord through his death on the cross, then “I
will be his own and live under him in his Kingdom, and serve him in everlasting
righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.”
10.
In the Second
Article, we learn that God has given himself to us, all that he is in the
person of Jesus, our Savior. That should be enough, right? God created you,
gave you your eyes, your ears, fingers, toes, and then he gave you his Son,
Jesus, who died on the cross for your sins to be your Lord, your Redeemer. That
should be enough, but it’s not. Jesus knew that it wasn’t enough. The Holy
Spirit must be given. In John 15, Jesus
says, “But when the Helper comes, whom I
will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the
Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because
you have been with me from the beginning” (vv 26–27).
11.
Jesus died on
the cross. That’s an objective reality. It happened. But unless the Holy Spirit
applies the reality of Jesus’ death on the cross to you, to your heart, it
remains hidden from you. Just as in my ignorance the Lutheran pastor didn’t
know how to turn on the heated seats in his car, there are many people in the
world for whom Jesus died who know nothing about him. Or they may know the
facts about him but have rejected him, refused to believe in him as Savior. The
Holy Spirit must give you faith. The
work of the Holy Spirit is sanctification, the work of making you holy. He does
this when he calls you by the Gospel, enlightens you with his gifts, sanctifies
and keeps you in the true faith. The
Holy Spirit connects you to Jesus, his cross, and his resurrection. He does
this through the Means of Grace, Word and Sacraments. Luther says this in his
Large Catechism, “How is such sanctifying
done? Answer, ‘The Son receives dominion, by which He wins us, through His
birth, death, resurrection, and so on. In a similar way, the Holy Spirit causes
our sanctification by the following: the communion of saints or the Christian
Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life
everlasting’ ” (LC II 37).
12.
I believe
that you have faith in Jesus. How did you receive that faith? You received it
through the Church. Whether you know it or not, members of the Holy Christian
Church brought the Word of God to you. For some it was the Word connected to
the water of Baptism. For others it was the Word proclaimed in a sermon or
shared over a cup of coffee. Possibly it was the Word printed in a booklet
given to you. But it was the Church that the Holy Spirit used to bring you to
faith. He uses the Church to keep you in
the faith. Luther writes this: “The
Spirit has His own congregation in the world, which is the mother that
conceives and bears every Christian through God’s Word” (LC II 42). Next
comes this famous quotation of Luther, “I
believe that there is upon earth a little holy group and congregation of pure
saints, under one head, even Christ. . . . This group is called together by the
Holy Spirit in one faith, one mind, and understanding, with many different
gifts, yet agreeing in love, without sects or schism” (LC II 51). This is
you. The Holy Spirit has made you a member of that little group, the Church. It
may not appear to the world to be successful, but success in the world can
often be counterfeit to God. By the calling of the Holy Spirit through the
Gospel, you are part of this little flock.
13.
I mark up my
sermon notes in various ways: Bold type means “better not miss that one.” An
asterisk marks things I’d better not skip. Here’s my bold triple X Luther quote
of the night, so wake up, if you fell asleep: “Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward
this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of
sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as
long as we live” (LC II 55). That’s why we’re here. The Church exists for
people to come and know their Savior Jesus and his precious blood shed on the
cross and to receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. That’s the Creed we believe.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment