“THE CREED”
Saint Luke 16: 10-18
Lent Midweek 2: 1 March Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Reformer puts The Creed AFTER the Ten Commandments as the Second of the 6 Chief Parts of the Catechism. But that’s because in a sequential “time-based” reality Genesis 3. 15 follows the “Fall” of Genesis 3. 1-7. Being saved comes only after being captured. Being found only comes after being lost. And not just being healed comes after falling sick, but, being raised from the dead comes only after dying.
But make no mistake about it dear Saints, The Gospel, which is The Creed, and The Creed is The Gospel, is the ultimate Word of The Lord. The Law is our tutor says the Apostle, our taskmaster, until, when, in the fulness of time The Gospel came to make us children and heirs and no longer mere servants. The theologians call The Gospel the “proper Work” of God.
And while most so-called Christians who remain infants, babes in their understanding of The Word of The Lord, think that John 3. 16 is The Gospel: full-stop, period, end of learning, you know that The Gospel in a catch-phrase, true and glorious as it is, is the ray from the sun, the electrical jolt from the generating power source, the voice from the mouth. John 3. 16 is the “Cliff Notes version” of, say, Luke Chapter 15, or the three Verba/Words of Institution narratives, the four Passion Accounts, all of The Evangelists Words about The Nazarene—Paul’s letters as well (Romans, Galatians…well, all of them)!
The Gospel is Christ Jesus, His Person and His Work. That Good-News Jesus is not a true propositional statement of fact, though it IS that, but it is the actually Present, Living, Eternal, Second Person of The Trinity—with all the Fullness of The Godhead, Risen & Glorified Logos with Flesh & Blood Incarnated Union (Emmanuel) for you, now!
“What does this mean?”
In both the longer Nicene Creed, your Holy Gospel reality every Lord’s Day, every Divine Service/Mass, as well as the Apostle’s Creed in the Catechism—your daily Evangel and Baptismal new-life reality, it’s all 100% free gift, Graced favor, and Jesus delivered release and peace, “for you!”
None of you are particularly faithful. None of you evidence the faith of the great Saints and Martyrs in matters least or much. You don’t use unrighteous mammon the way God commands. You serve the masters of self, world, and, even Satan, more than you should while neglecting your neighbor, and while not fearing God above all things. By the Law you are lost and condemned.
But your Lord and Master takes your Pharisaical heart and skewers it dead by the Law. So that He might send The Son to give you a new heart and a new everlasting life in His own precious Heart—His Body and His Blood. He does this in fact but also He always accompanies it with His Word of loosing and forgiveness. It’s Gospel, Good News, because you don’t cooperate, you didn’t seek it, you did not participate in your own being rescued and brought back from the dead: “no man hath quickened his own soul” [Ps. 22. 30b]. That is what the Words of The Apostle’s Creed (particularly the Second Article) state about the content of The Creed: Jesus Christ and Him crucified!
Lent is a wonderful time in the Church year, invented by The Church, though to be sure with Scriptural antecedents (Moses and the Israelites). It is a time when you focus a bit sharper on your sins, our need for repentance—fighting the good fight with the aid of the Holy Spirit—and upon death. God does not want you to have an easy life. God wants you to have an eternal life with Him in heaven. Lent is a time for your increased study and meditation upon His Word. Lent is a time for increased alms giving and fasting…so that you have increased meditation upon His Word. His Word is Jesus the God/Man. His Word is Gospel—The Creed. But, or maybe, so, so when you fail miserably during Lent…so when you act like a self-justifying hypocrite or a lazy ungrateful lout…so when you do no Lenten discipline and little love for neighbor…all because you fail in the First Commandment…Christ is your Gospel. Read the Creed, confess the Creed, believe the Creed. The Creed in many ways is a theological explanation of what The Lord gives you in Psalm 23.
Psalm 23, John 3. 16, all of Saint Luke’s Evangel are true whether one “believes” they are or not. The Gospel—The Creed—Jesus saves you not your belief or faith. Your faith is the hand The Lord has already created and given you to receive The Son, i.e. your ears to receive His Words and your mouth to receive His Sacrament.
“What does this mean?”
“You believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of The Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary, is your Lord, Who has redeemed you, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death, that you may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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