Isaiah 43.10-13; John 11.17-27; John 20.24-29
Seventeen-hundred years ago, after a long period of persecution and fear, the Church gathered in Nicaea in present day Turkey, near Constantinople, to affirm the Christian faith. After a lot of prayer and discussion, and seeking God’s will, they produced a statement of our belief in our understanding of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a statement which we uphold and believe true today - the Nicene Creed. During this service we will be thinking about belief and Jesus’ provocative question to Martha: “Do you believe this?” a huge question for us all.
Belief. Okay 1700 years ago around 400 scholars gathered in Nicaea and produced the Nicene creed - a summary of our understanding of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No other faith shares this statement. It is foundational to our belief as Christians. Other faiths will have their understanding of God, but ours is unique as declaring God in three persons. It is a beautiful and challenging summary of the Christian understanding of God. Can we believe what the Nicene creed says? Do we believe it all or just those bits we are comfortable with?
Let’s think about belief for a moment.
I have here a paper bag with an orange inside. True or false? How are you going to check? Are you just going to believe me? Oh, Graham’s a nice guy, I have never known him to lie, I trust him, if he says it is an orange, I believe him. Or do you wish to come and check? What can you do without opening the bag? Smell, touch, look at it from the outside. Use our senses. Use our previous knowledge of oranges - size, weight, smell, touch, etc, Then finally we can look inside and take it out and voila here is the orange. I was telling the truth.
But what about the Nicene creed? It says some amazing things about God. Yet we have said it so often that the words trip off our tongue without us thinking about it. A bit like the Lord’s prayer, familiarity breeds contempt or at least familiarity means we lose the awesomeness of it.
Every statement in the Nicene Creed is backed up by scripture, by what we read particularly in the gospels and letters, but also in the Old Testament. It is also backed up by the experience of past Christians, followers of Jesus Christ and our own experiences of God. We are not blind in this, we are not without our own understandings and experiences. We are not in a void or vacuum, we live in an age when the Holy Spirit is active in and around us, revealing the presence and reality of God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the more time we spend in prayer especially silent listening prayer, the more we know this.
Talking like this reminds me of my 30 day silent retreat- a very special time of being with God. Each of us, I hope, has had experiences of the reality of God, whether within a group or by ourselves. God is real and the words expressed in this creed are an excellent summary of how we relate to God and know him.
In the Bible readings, Martha knew that Jesus could perform miracles and trusted that he could bring her brother back to life. She had seen him do this with others. In their conversation, she firstly makes a complaint against Jesus - if you had been here, my brother would not have died. I wonder if any of us here have expressed something similar - Jesus if you had turned up when we wanted you to, then you would have sorted out our problem, would have answered our request, our cry for help. How easy it is to stay in that place of anger, sadness and bitterness, and a focus on what might have been rather than what can be. But Martha has hope and shows us a different way: “Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Wow, anything.
Jesus intercedes for us. He is in heaven now, praying for us. I wonder what he is praying for? For you, for me? I think our prayers are often too small, too focussed on ourselves, too focussed on our physical state or condition. Wanting alleviation from pain or suffering, and yet Jesus offers much more.
“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
Eternal life is being revealed and expressed, and the way to it is belief in Jesus. That he is God’s Son, that he is the Messiah, the anointed one, our redeemer, our rescuer, our Lord, our King. That he is God himself. This is what the Nicene Creed states. And it is awesome, mind bending, life transforming. You cannot state it without recognising its impact for us and all of humanity.In the second reading from John’s gospel, in one of the resurrection stories, Thomas had been told by others that Jesus had been raised from the dead, but he wanted proof. He wanted to see for himself. When Jesus showed him his hands and side, then he believed, and instantly knew him as Lord and God, and not an impersonal God but my God. He had walked with Jesus for three years, shared bread and wine with him. Sweated up hills alongside him. He knew Jesus the man, and now he knew Jesus the God, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father.
I wonder how easy we find it to believe and trust in what we can’t see. Are we like Martha, or maybe like Thomas, having doubts or wanting to see proof before we believe? Do we like the orange in the bag, accept what others say or do we want to touch it, to smell it, to feel it, to see it for ourselves. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”
In a moment we will say the Nicene creed together. It is a statement shared by all Christians of all denominations. Okay there are two phrases which some do not agree with but putting those aside, it is otherwise a statement that draws all Christians across the world together. The Christians from other denominations and countries who we know - the church in Cyprus that David Fry attends, those in Tanzania that Sheila Waddington-Feather has supported for many years, the ones in India that Freddie has left behind, the young man in Rwanda that Emma and I supported through Compassion UK, the priest in Tanzania that the deanery is about to support, the ex drug lords I met as Christians in Hong Kong, Barmasher Rai, the only Christian in his Hindu/Buddhist village in Nepal who I met, those Christians under pressure in Gaza, Israel, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, and so many other countries listed in the Open Doors list of countries where Christian are persecuted just for being Christians, followers of Jesus.All of us are joined together as brothers and sisters in Christ because we share one common faith in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A belief summarised in the words of the Nicene creed. So in this week as we think of and pray for other Christians across the world, let us also affirm our own faith, our own belief in God. Let us cast away any doubts and embrace all that God is and has for us.
Amen.
I invite you now to take a candle and we are going to light them from the Easter candle, and pass the light on, as we do so, I invite you to say the words, “The light of Christ “ to each other, reminding ourselves of our own baptism and also reminding ourselves that we are part of a world wide family of believers, and that: “We believe…”