St Luke, Spokane, Feb. 21, 2024

First Article of the Apostle’s Creed

For our synod staff devotions this year, we have been exploring Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, using a book I had long owned but never read, Praying the Catechism. A Catechism, including Luther’s, contains the 10 Commandments, Apostle’s Creed, and Lord’s Prayer. I was the nerdy church kid who loved when my home pastor introduced us to these timeless documents and Luther’s explanations in junior high and I have returned to The Small Catechism again and again as a pastor. 

The Apostle’s Creed, Martin Luther believed, “will teach and show people where to find the medicine—grace—which will help them to become devout and keep the commandments. The Creed points them to God and God’s mercy, given and made plain to them in Christ.” But I won’t jump ahead to next week. 

Tonight, we get to dwell in the words of that first short article: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” There is so much packed into these few words. First, God created you! Wow! Do we even realize what a remarkable statement of faith that is today? We confess that we believe that in ways explained and unexplained, the omnipotent divine created each of us. 

I actually like to think of the Creed as a statement of faith and a prayer, a prayer of gratitude and thanks and holy wonder. Author Anne Lammot says all prayers can be categorized into three: Ask, Thanks, and Wow. The First Article of the Creed is both a Thanks and a Wow prayer. Wow, God, you really did something amazing! Thanks, God, for making me and this vast world.

It’s hard to grasp this wonder. The skeptic in our post-Enlightenment minds says, “This makes no sense.” It may be easier to believe that you are nothing but a chance selection of protein cast through the universe. Or you may feel, for any number of reasons, that you are not worth much.

The book of Genesis says that as each part of the world unfolded under the creative hand of God, God said, “This is good.” God had an intention for all that was created, and it was good You are created for this good. You have been placed here for good and for God. Nothing can shake away that plan for that hope for you.

Everyone’s favorite Psalm 139 reads “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

In Genesis chapters 1 and 2 we read accounts of God creating; God creates the universe out of chaos in an orderly and beautiful way and God is revealed as a God who is relational, creating human beings out of the mud of the earth and blowing the breath of life into them. 

But tonight I want to share my other favorite interpretation of creation, which comes from C.S. Lewis’ book the Magician’s Nephew, the sixth book in the classic Chronicles of Narnia. A small party of people find themselves in darkness. The feel doomed. Then, Lewis writes, “in the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away” and it was hard to decide from what direction it was coming. “Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise they had ever heard.”

Two wonders happen at the same moment—the voice was joined by other voices and the blackness overhead was blazing with stars. Then the sky on the horizon grew steadily paler. All the time the voice was singing. “The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose…The Lion [Aslan] was pacing to and for about that empty land and singing his new song… and as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool.”

On and on, Aslan sang all living creatures into being. Finally the lion was silent. Then either from the sky or from the Lion itself, the deepest, wildest voice they had every heard was saying: ‘Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters’” (98-116). 

The Genesis creation story, especially the orderly telling in Chapter 1, is a song too, not a laundry list, but a holy love song. The Creator was there in the beginning. It is a song of hope and belonging and vision, a vision for a world full of abundant life. 

The Creator God has placed us on this beautiful earth and entrusted us with its use and care. Each time we confess our sins we might include the harm we have done to our planet—to the earth, to the air, and to the water. 

This Season of Lent is grounded in the disciplines of prayer, generosity, and fasting. What might those disciplines look like when it comes to our relationship with God the Father almighty who created heaven and earth? How can we sing again God’s love song of creation? What organizations are working locally and globally on creation justice? What neighbors, most vulnerable to food scarcity, ought we pray for? How can our actions be aligned with our prayers? 

When we confess the words of the first article of The Apostle’s Creed, we hear again the wonder of God creating each of us. Thanks and wow God! What pure gift. You and I and all of creation are connected to one another and we are connected to the God who made us. How can we not respond to this gift by caring for all of God’s good creation? We simply cannot help ourselves.

Let us pray. Blessed are you, O God, maker of all things. Through your goodness you have blessed us with these gifts: ourselves, our time and our possessions. Use us, and what we gather, in feeding the world with your love, through the one who gave himself for us, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.