Who speaks to you all today
saying,
Belief is a secular value, even
though it is used over 300 times in the Bible and is usually associated with
Christianity. Most of the time, belief is defined as those reasonings about
what things are or how you think about what is. These beliefs color how you
view the world and everyone in it.
So, a person can believe in God
and the supernatural, but another can also believe in no-gods and only the
natural. One person can believe all life is valuable and another can believe
only certain life is valuable. Simply because someone believes does not make
that belief true. You do not want to confront the person who believes your life
is not valuable, even though you think it is.
And yet we know that belief can be
good. You can believe that life is important, no matter how small. You can
believe every person has the rights and dignity of every other person. You can
believe that hard work and determination go a long, long way in this world. You
can not believe in everything. You need to pick your belief and stand there and
sometimes that means in opposition to others.
What really confuses me is those
people who say they believe in everything, not just one thing. They believe
that if they can just pick the middle of the road in all things (moderation),
that they will have become more enlightened. They believe that if they accept
all truth as equal, that they will find themselves ahead of the pack.
The reason this confuses me is
because when you believe in everything, you do not have any sort of form or
structure to your belief system. It just kind of floats out there, changes with
the weather, and you’re not that interesting to talk to. And something that has
no form or shape is called nothing. Thus, a belief in everything is a belief in
nothing.
But, contrary to the opinion of
some, everyone believes in something. Even a belief in nothing is still
something. Likewise, everyone has their own creeds or list of values and
judgments. You can not live and survive in this world without such a list. Talk
to someone enough, and their beliefs, how they judge the world, will come out.
What do you believe in? This
weekend we have the travelling Vietnam Memorial wall in town. Those names up
there mean they believed in something. Regardless of what you think of the
politicians that sent them to fight a war or the reasons for fighting, those
servicemen invested their entire lives into what they swore to do. Have you
ever invested your life in like manner?
Nicodemus risked his very life to
go see Jesus. No, he was not sneaking around and lying as some think, but he
was searching for righteousness. He was investing his entire life into
discovering its whereabouts and the only reward he would get when his true
allegiance was made known, was ostracization and death for leaving Judaism.
Jesus was bound and determined to
not only risk His own life for His beliefs, but to let others take it from Him.
Even though He laid down His own life, Jesus was still a man; a man that stood
alone in order to believe in the only true thing to believe in: you.
Yes, yes. Jesus perfectly believed
in God and lead a perfect life in His eyes, but listen again to what Jesus is
saying to Nicodemus. God must not be born again. God must not be born of water
and the Spirit. It is Nicodemus who must do these things, and even though
Nicodemus does not get it, Jesus gives us the answer: he must be born of the
Spirit. Belief must be given.
Repent, dear Christians. It is not
enough for you to believe in something. You must believe something. Belief on
its own is not anything to be proud of, neither is belief in something to the
exclusion of others. It is not what you believe, but Who you believe. And
before that, it is not Who you believe, but Who believes in you.
Yes, Jesus believes in you. He
believes in you so much that He created an entire cosmos for you to live and
breathe and grow in. He believes in you so much that He gave you His own breath
as your breath that you might share His joy in this creation. He believes in
you so much that He gave you His very personal name and revealed how you could
find Him any time you want to.
And it is Jesus’ faith that today
opens your lips in the words of the Divine Service and the Athanasian Creed.
For this is not just what you believe, but Who you believe. The creeds are not
just there as an academic exercise, but as a precise statement of Who is to be
believed, this is why the creeds are hated.
First off, they exclude any pagan
or humanist religion. They force the reciter to take a stand with the God that
is being described. The one and only God that has created all things and sends
His Spirit to care for all things.
Next, they quash the belief of any
who would say of God “great spirit” or “mother” or any iteration other than
Father. The one who recites is forced to believe in the manliness of God. Not
only that, but then that believer is made to believe that God became man and
accomplished His greatest work as a man.
Remember, that Christ’s own words
were that the work that one should be doing to be doing the work of God is
believing. Not just believing, but believing in the One sent from God, that is
Jesus the Christ of God.
This is why the Church centers
around the Body and Blood of Jesus, because it is there that this belief is
handed out. In the Lord’s Supper, you not only confess with your lips that
Jesus is Lord, but you believe with your heart, mind, stomach that there is one
God, the Father Almighty, the Son, Jesus Christ crucified, and the Spirit not
created but proceeding.
The Sacrament of the Altar places
the burning coal of the Word of God on your lips in order that, when the Pastor
of God declares, “Behold this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken
away, and your sin atoned for”, your new found belief in Christ responds, “Be
it done to me as the Lord wills” and “Amen, amen, yes, yes, it shall be
so.”
Jesus first believes that it is
right to sacrifice Himself for His mortal enemies: you all in your sin. It is
in that atoning sacrifice that you are made to believe the same thing. In the
belief of Christ, you are given faith to believe the same way Jesus does. It is
only the one whom the Son chooses to reveal faith to, who gets to believe.
Thus, the clear way Jesus has made for His people is in Word and Sacrament, for
they contain the promises of God for the believer.
When you hear, “whoever believes
and is baptized will be saved” and because of your baptism you find that the
Bible is talking about you, you have exactly what the words say you have:
salvation. When you hear, “whoever believes in the Son will have eternal life”
or “this is my Body, this is my Blood given for the forgiveness of sins”, what
do you suppose belief is telling you there?
Jesus’ belief allows the Christian
to be close minded and open minded at the same time. He hears both heavenly
truth, which cannot change, and he finds and seeks out earthly truth, which can
be quite elusive. Jesus belief also allows the Christian to be myopic and
clairvoyant. He is only focused on Christ and what He is doing, where He is at,
yet he can be compassionate and sympathetic to all who face their own problems,
regardless of what they believe.
Christ chooses to reveal Himself
in His Church and He chooses to give Himself to you. Belief’s response is to be
baptized, hear the Gospel, receive the sacrament, and confess, “Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God of Sabbaoth!”
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