From a message given at Durham Friends Meeting, April 7, 2019
For some, Jesus’s message is what you take to heart. What he preached, what he taught, was so very different from what anyone else was teaching. Not just turn the other cheek. The last shall be first. Be not proud but be humble. Ask for forgiveness. Help the poor in possession, body or spirit. He taught a new way of life that turned upside down the common sense of the world, and you find it oddly compelling even if very, very challenging to follow.
For others, it’s the miracles. There were miracles he performed while he was alive. Water to wine, lepers cleansed of their affliction, the sick healed, a multitude fed on a few loaves and fishes, even one raised from the dead. Like a master magician, he saved his most stunning miracle for the end by coming back from his own death.
Message or miracle? Miracle or message? Speaking for myself, I’ve been more drawn to the message, the challenging message, than to the miracle. I’ve not been sure what to make of the miracle story. This spring season presses us to think about the miracle.
I grew up in a church that recited the Apostles Creed nearly every Sunday. It wasn’t really written by the Apostles, but it is old, probably from the 4th century. Quakers are suspicious of creeds. George Fox, our founder, said, “You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this: but what canst thou say?” But just today I want to read the Apostles Creed:
I
believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
I am struck by how much that 115-word summary stresses the miracle. It hardly says a word about the message – maybe nothing at all. Where is the Sermon on the Mount in that Creed? The Good Samaritan? Where is the tenderness to the poor or broken-hearted? Where is the call to peace and justice?
That Creed with its focus on the miracle side gives us guidance about how we are to understand the miracle. “Resurrection of the body”: that would be a miracle. “Ditto “Life everlasting” – the door to heaven swung open to believers. “Forgiveness of sins”: some theologians speak of “substitutionary atonement:” Christ died for our sins so we can be forgiven, a dramatic ‘paying it forward.’
But let’s note. People don’t write creeds to sum up what everyone believes. They write creeds to forge agreement, maybe even force agreement. Among early Christians there was disagreement about what the miracle of Jesus’s last days was about. Serious disagreement. The Apostles Creed was put together to insist on orthodoxy. If you didn’t subscribe to that you were a heretic. Hence the Quaker reluctance about creeds. “What canst thou say?”
The entire message is available at Doug’s blog, River View Friend
