Back to the Basics - This We Believe!
I Believe . . . We Believe
August 10, 2008
Mark 9:14-24
Back in the mid-1800s there was an acrobat and tightrope walker by the name of Charles Blondin. Known commonly as "The Great Blondin," he was quite a celebrity in his day. He travelled all over the world wowing audiences with his agility and his balance. He is best remembered, however, for being the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope. And he didn't just make his way gingerly across the rope. He was known to do things like crossing it on stilts or wearing a blindfold. One time, he walked to the middle where he sat down while he cooked and ate an omelet. Needless to say crowds came from far and wide to see him cross those dangerous falls-beats Fear Factor for entertainment value by a long shot!
One of his many tricks was to push a wheelbarrow across the tightrope. The story is told that one time after pushing the wheelbarrow across, he asked the crowd, "Who believes that I can cross pushing this wheelbarrow?" Every hand in the crowd went up, so The Great Blondin pointed to one man in the crowd and asked, "Do you believe that I can do it?" The man replied, "Yes, I believe you can." Blondin asked "Are you certain?" And the man replied, "yes.' So Blondin asked, "Absolutely certain?" To which the man replied, "Yes! Absolutely." Blondin said, "Thank you! Then sir, get into the wheelbarrow."
I understand the man left quickly.
This leads us to an interesting story from the gospel of Mark.
When they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. When the whole crowd saw him, they were immediately overcome with awe, and they ran forward to greet him. He asked them, "What are you arguing about with them?" Someone from the crowd answered him, "Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so." He answered them, "You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood. It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us." Jesus said to him, "If you are able!-All things can be done for the one who believes." Immediately the father of the child cried out, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:14-24 NRSV)
What does it mean to say, "I believe"?
The man standing in the crowd at the edge of the raging waters of Niagara Falls believed absolutely. He had proof-scientific proof-he had seen what Blondin could do with his very eyes. He had no doubts about what he had seen. But when it came to climbing into the wheelbarrow his absolute belief meant nothing. He didn't trust Blondin with his life.
The man in our scripture, however, believed in a very different way. He didn't have scientific evidence of what Jesus was capable of. In fact, he admits he has doubts. But unlike the man at Niagara Falls and even unlike Jesus' disciples, he believed despite his doubts. He believed despite the lace of evidence. He believed not because he had all the facts but because he trusted Jesus with his son's life.
Most of us are here today because at some point in our lives we stood before someone and said, "I believe." What's more we didn't just say we believe but we said that we believed a particular truth about God and how God works in this world and that truth is summarized in what is usually called "The Apostle's Creed."
It is called a Creed because the English word creed is actually derived from the Latin Word credo which means "I believe." And while the word creed is used to define any statement of belief, the word is derived from the ancient Christian confessions of faith, most of which begin with some form of "I believe in God . . ."
Now you may wonder why someone considered it important to have a creed at all. You might ask: Isn't enough to say I believe in God or I believe in Jesus?
The Bible contains many creeds, but one of the most important is found in the book of Deuteronomy.
To this day, Jews recite this creed throughout the day. It is called the Shema and comes from Deuteronomy 6 and it begins, "The Lord Our God is One. You shall the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength." And then God goes on to instruct them to teach it to their children, to talk about it as they walk, to post it on the doorpost and wear it on their heads and arms.
The early Christians shared this belief, but in trying to explain their commitment to Jesus they had to expand upon that creed. So the first Christian creed was very simple: Jesus is Lord. By saying Jesus is Lord, the early Christians were making a political declaration-Jesus not Caesar is Lord-and they made that declaration at risk of death. But also by saying Jesus is Lord, they were saying that they gave control of their lives to this one called Jesus and they said that at risk of being declared blasphemous. The word Lord or Adonai was the ancient word used-not simple for a master-but for God himself! So they were saying Jesus-not Caesar was their Lord, their master, and Jesus was not just any man: Jesus was God.
But then someone asked, "If God is one, how can Jesus be God." So they had to expand their creed to answer the question. And so the second oldest Christian creed we know is slightly longer: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord, Savior. This was so important that Christians memorized it. This was so important that they found a wonderful way of symbolizing it. You see, if you take the Greek letters at the beginning of each of those words and make an acronym, it spells the Greek word, ICTHUS, and that word means fish. So that even when early Christians couldn't say the creed aloud to one another. They would draw it. And today, we even paste them on the back of our cars to say, "We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord Savior."
That was just the beginning of questions though. Christians asked each other for clarification on what it meant to believe in God, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to be the church? What happens next? And what must I believe to say I am a Christian?
The end result of all that questioning and answering is what we now call the Apostle's creed. A statement which summarizes the Bible in a particular way that focuses on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The creed then began a way of teaching the essentials of the faith-those things which all Christians agreed. Regardless of denomination, nationality and race, regardless of disagreements on other aspects of theology and doctrine, regardless of differences in how we worship or how much water we use to baptize or even the age we baptize, these are the aspects of faith that we all hold to be true and essential.
John Wesley famously said, "In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things charity." The Apostle's Creed provides those things for which Christians are unified. And to this day, these are the beliefs that define right belief (the technical term for which is orthodoxy) for Christians.
The foundation for the creed is laid in the Scripture itself. With a couple of exceptions the exact words of the creed are all found in the Bible.
During the next couple of months as we explore the different claims of the creed, we will look at the Scriptures where we find those words.
But because one particular line is a stumbling block for some, let me address it briefly before I go any farther: "I believe in the Holy catholic church." Later, I will have a whole sermon on that one line. But today, let me briefly share what that line means. To believe in the holy catholic church is to believe that the church is holy-holy meaning "Set apart." A holy church is not a perfect church but a church set apart by God to serve a particular purpose in the world. To believe in the holy catholic church does not mean that we are pledging some sort of allegiance to the Roman Catholic church. In fact, it means just the opposite! The word here is catholic-small "c"-which means "universal." To believe that the church is catholic-that is universal-is to believe that our allegiance is ultimately to a church that is not defined by denominational names or particular doctrines but rather is defined by these essential beliefs that we all hold in common. To say "I believe in the holy catholic church" is not to say "I believe in the Roman Catholic church," or "I believe in the United Methodist Church," or "I believe in the Church of Christ," or "I believe in the southern Baptist church." It is to say, I believe in the church that is set apart by a particular God who has been most fully revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
But that line about the holy catholic church is not the biggest stumbling block for most people. The biggest stumbling block is the phrase: "I believe."
Americans today are a pretty skeptical bunch. Some of us are "from Missouri" and need to be shown everything or we wont' believe. Others refuse to believe anything they can't figure out for themselves. Still others refuse to trust anything that is old. And there is a book out now that claims that Americans are enslaved by our addiction to choice-whether it is choosing from among 100s of variations of a green bean, choosing whether to bring a life into the world, choosing the shape of our nose or the color of our hair, or choosing what to believe. We are enslaved to a constant process of sorting through things based on our very limited knowledge and experience.
But the creed reminds us that there are some things that people for two thousand years have found to be true. There have been times they have doubted it. There have been times they've struggled to believe it. There have been times they relied on others people's faith in it. But in the end, they have found it be true-more true than the emotions of a particular moment or their individual experiences.
Which leads to another problem that folks have with the creed-how can you recite the creed if you have trouble believing a particular part of it? For instance, what if you don't understand the line about the church, or the communion of saints, or the virgin birth? How do you stand and say "I believe" when you aren't quite sure.
The creed reminds us that as Christians we are in the process of growing in our understanding. We don't always understand. We, like the demoniac's Father, sometimes doubt. Being a Christian has never meant that we will not have questions, that we won't doubt. Instead being a Christian means we put our faith-our trust-in something that is bigger than us. Faith is not belief without question; rather true faith is that which we choose to believe despite our doubts. And in fact, we often grow most in our faith in those times when we struggle to believe, when we walk without sight, only to find out that those things we weren't sure were true really were!
This is another one of those places where the English language lets us down-because the belief of the creed doesn't simply mean intellectual ascent as in I believe that gravity will make that rock fall. The belief of the creed means something more like, "I trust" or "I put my faith in." To say we believe, in the spirit of the creed, is to say "I put my trust in God the Father Almighty . . . " The creed is about relationship not about science.
Still others have trouble with saying "I believe" because they fear that it will reduce our faith to an unfeeling, unbelieving recitation of facts about God rather than a belief in God. And without a doubt, Christians throughout the ages have managed to do just that. And I've heard congregations recite it like someone was pulling it out of them and it drives me crazy!
Folks-this is good news! This is the story of how God has been, is, and will continue to be at work in our lives and in this world. This is the gospel-the good news! These are not words that we should drone but words we should shout! In this short paragraph, you find the entire gospel-in fact the entire Bible!
I've often heard John 3:16 referred to as the gospel in miniature but I beg to disagree. John 3:16 says nothing about who God is or the role of the Holy Spirit. As beautiful a statement of faith (and it is a creed!) it doesn't tell us what happens next or what we are to do about our belief in Jesus. The Apostle's creed, on the other hand, attempts to answers all those questions. It is not simply about what we believe. It is about what it means to believe.
How can that be-well if we truly believe then it will impact how we live. The man at Niagara didn't truly believe or he would have jumped in that wheelbarrow with no problem. In fact, interestingly enough a few years later the Great Blondin's manager allowed himself to be carried on Blondin's back across Niagara Falls-he believed in his client! The demoniac's father doubted but despite his doubts, despite his questions, he chose to put his trust in Jesus and in doing so his life was transformed!
Do you believe-truly believe? Do you put your trust in God the Father Almighty? Do you believe in God's church? Do you believe in the sacrifice of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit? DO you believe in the forgiveness of sins-yours and others? Do you believe in a future with God and a judgment that will set all things right? These are the things we say we believe when we say the creed. These are the things that shape how we behave individually and who we are as a church.
In the next few months, we will explore what the creed says, what we believe and what difference it should make in our lives and I believe that exploration will be transformative for each of us. As Rich Mullins proclaims so beautiful in his song about the Apostle's Creed-"I did not make it-no it is making me. It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man."
Do you believe?
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