Credo

Sunday, February 4th, 2007
Epiphany 5
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 15:1-11

1 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain. 3For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

Why are we here?

I don’t mean that in the rhetorical, theoretical sense, I mean literally here, today, sitting and standing in this sanctuary? What compels us, if anything, to come together on Sunday mornings and sing and pray and give and read and listen, and then come back week after week?

Is there something in our genetic makeup as humans that calls us out in search of something greater than ourselves, some greater consciousness that we can call ‘God’ and feel safer for being in his good graces? Is that the thing that Saint Augustine called the ‘God Shaped hole’ in us?

I remember watching documentaries about Stone Age tribes on islands in the south pacific, or in the interior of the Amazon jungle, and almost invariably at some point in the commentary, the religious practices are explained. There’s usually a priest or a shaman or some designated person who serves as an intermediary between the tribe and their respective god or gods … this person tells people what they are to do or not do, and how they are to please that god.

I ask myself are we that different? Is our version of god and our intermediary just a little more cleaned up and less inclined to expect a ring through our noses in order to be happy with us?

What is still an oral tradition for those tribes – not yet having their language in writing – is what we have had for almost two thousand years – Holy Scriptures. And there is a finality to seeing something in writing that somehow seems to lend it more weight than simply the spoken word.

I wonder if there are members of those tribes who are just going along because that is WHERE THEY LIVE, because it’s their family, because if they didn’t go along it would be noticed and frowned on. Is it our ability to disassociate our minds and hearts from what is coming out of our mouths that makes us … better than them? More advanced? Other words come to mind, and they are not necessarily expressions of admiration.

If their expressions of religiosity are on some level parallel to our own, then we are not that far apart in terms of a sense of need, of longing, of reconnection (re-ligion – re-tieing) to our creator. The difference is, of course, notable in the direction of our efforts. It was this difference in direction that Paul was addressing with the Church in Corinth as well. There is human endeavor and there is divine intervention.

In today’s passage, we find Paul beginning to deal with what is at the heart of his letter to the church in Corinth, that is, the fact of the resurrection of Christ and it’s implications for their lives – and ours as well – he was going to the heart of the Gospel. What the Gospel actually turns on. Another way of putting it: this event, this resurrection that we will begin to move towards in a specific, intentional way as we approach and move through the season of Lent, leading up to the celebration of Easter, this event is what turns the story of Jesus from an insignificant historical footnote to a cosmically transformative cataclysm.

Paul is dealing with the specifics of the situation in Corinth, but it is difficult to tell from the way he writes to whom he is directing his arguments. The words, and the way he uses the words, are rare in the rest of Paul’s writings, so there is no solid point of reference in terms of comparing it to what he says in other letters to get an understanding of what he means with them here.

He is, in a sense, putting his faith on the line – he is saying ‘this is what I received, this is what I believe, and this is what I taught – delivered is the word actually used – to you when I was with you.’ All in the face of reports that what he had taught – that core of the Gospel – had been cast aside for ideas that fell more in line with what the citizens of Corinth were used to hearing and believing all their lives. For example, that there was no resurrection of the body, that it was only the soul that was immortal, that Christ had risen in spirit only, and that we should not expect anything different. That our resurrection in some sense had already occurred when we became a follower of Christ. It disassociated the belief from the living, and the result was that it gave them permission to do just about anything they wanted.

These contradicted what were central beliefs to the early church – those that were most clearly and most quickly identified as fundamental to the faith. Scholars believe that the latter portion of verse three through the end of verse five actually are a quote of those beliefs:

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas …

The Latin word ‘Credo’ means ‘I Believe.’ It is, you may have guessed, the same word from which we get the word ‘Creed’ – usually used to refer to one’s belief system or worldview. Most of us have heard of the Apostle’s Creed, or the Nicene Creed, but as good Baptists, we have not committed them to memory, since we, historically have stood on the principle of ‘no creed but the Bible’ when it comes to such things. And yet, it is important to periodically, if not continually, delve into what it is that makes us DO what we DO, especially on Sunday mornings, if for no other reason than to make sure that we are still engaged in exercising our faith through exercising our minds and hearts, not simply going through repetitive motions each week.

So what do we believe as individuals, as members of this family of faith, as members of the universal church, as followers of Christ? Do we really, truly believe that Jesus was beaten, crucified, died, and buried? Do we truly believe that God raised him from the dead on the third day?

If we do believe those things, what implications does that have for our lives? How is that going to play out in how we carry on, on a daily basis?

What does saying that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Let’s look at just those two things – that Jesus died, and that Jesus arose from the dead.

The first is a statement that is more related to life as we know it from an earthly standpoint. We have, almost to a person, been faced with the death of someone we know or love, we know what it is like for someone to be there, talking, laughing, and singing alongside, hugging, whatever … and a short while later to NOT be there, seemingly irretrievably gone.

There is nothing we can do or say that will bring them back to us. As time passes, we move on as best we can, sometimes with a gaping wound in our lives, and sometimes with a not quite so painful … space … where before we shared a meal on a certain night of the week, or a phone call at a particular time of day, now there is silence. That is what the first statement resonates with inside of us when we hear it.

The second statement is different. “Jesus arose from the dead.” How crazy is that? How contrary can you get? There is nothing we know that is as final as death. And yet, here, at the core of the Gospel is this statement that is basically saying that it ain’t necessarily so. That death is not the end, but in a proportional way, it is more of a beginning. To say that Jesus arose from the dead is to turn OUR reality, OUR limited, fragile, shortsighted, self-absorbed, provincial, anthropocentric world view on its ear and say “maybe there really IS more to life than I’ve assumed there was ‘til now.”

Saying and believing it means opening ourselves up to possibilities that we can’t even imagine, which could end up putting us in places we’d never expect to be – whether that be HERE, standing in this pulpit on Sunday mornings, or talking to a stranger at the post office, or in the hardware store, striking up a conversation for no good reason other than because you just felt like you HAD TO speak to them in a friendly, compassionate way. And in the course of the conversation to make a connection, to make a difference in the way that person’s day was going, and give them a sense that they truly are not alone, just as we realize we are not alone by coming and being a part of this community.

The audacity of the Gospel is to proclaim a reality that we can only see dimly, if at all. To proclaim in faith that this is not the final reality, where we are right now, but that it is a temporary one, a passing moment – the writer of James calls this life ‘a mist that appears for a little while, and then vanishes’.

To believe the Gospel is to believe that what we do here matters, yes, but that what is to be is the truth of our existence. That the Kingdom of God is higher and deeper and broader and stronger and MORE than we can even imagine, but that it IS THERE.

The invitation today is to live in THAT reality, and in THAT living, bring IT into THIS fragile one.

Let’s pray.