Affirming Our Faith

Oh . . . if we really believed, not as an article of our creed, which has become so familiar to us that it produces little impression upon us; but as a vital and ever-present conviction of our souls, that with us there was ever the real presence of the real Christ, how all burdens and cares would be lightened, how all perplexities would begin to smooth themselves out and be straightened, all the force would be sucked out of temptations, and how sorrows and joys and all things would be changed in their aspect by that one conviction intensely realized and constantly with us! A present Christ is the Strength, the Righteousness, the Peace, the Joy, . . . the Life of every Christian soul. – Alexander MacLaren

The Presbyterian Book of Common Worship notes that the proclamation of God’s Word in scripture and sermon invites a response of faith and one of those responses is a corporate Affirmation of Faith, such as the Apostle’s or Nicene Creed.

In our church, the Affirmation comes immediately after the sermon and is a physical as well as verbal response, as the congregation, sitting during the sermon, stands to say together some form of what we believe.

The trick with things done by repetition is, as per Alexander MacLaren, is to keep such recitations “as a vital and ever-present conviction of our souls”, noting as he does, what difference in our lives that would make.

We join in affirming out faith as a reminder of what is real, what is true; as a way of internalizing into our very molecular structure, that which God would have us hold to; as a way of claiming Christ present, the very ‘Life of every Christian soul’.

And so last Sunday, we drafted our own Affirmation, our own statement of core beliefs, beginning with I believe . . . Jesus is Lord . . . in the Resurrection . . . God moves in mysterious ways . . . because He lives . . .amen/may it be so . . . 

The challenge, perhaps, is to not stand at the end of the sermon, but to jump from our seats, offering our enthusiastic response to all that God has provided us, to provide our own amen of commitment as well as belief, claiming as well as receiving, of God’s own way, God’s own truth, God’s own life.

Affirming My Faith

I believe in a Father who so loves his children to wait in silence for their return in order to give them the best robe, kill the fatted calf and celebrate the feast of reconciliation.  Parent to child – is this how I see God?  Mostly yes.  Mostly I image God as a lap, comforting, welcoming, waiting to be climbed into, lifting up to, lap.  And God-silence is one of my favorite things . . . it is the silence of new-fallen snow in the nighttime. . . silence that is full, not empty – full of promise and possibility, safe haven and love – the silence where nothing need be said because all is understood – the comfortable silence of the life-long known to one another.  I yearn into that God silence.  The feast is just a bonus.

I believe in a Spirit whose power is not revealed in the thunder of the gale nor in the dread of the earthquake but in the still, small voice.  I do believe in the Spirit and the silence, but I revel in and cherish the thunder of the gale and need the dread of earthquakes in my life.  The gale and thunder reverberate down the very molecules of me, ever reminding that safe is not predictable . . . that love is not definable . . . that sometimes God is the storm and that, too, is good.  And earthquakes – how they show me that any ground that I stand on that is not God is uneven at best and perilous dangerous at worst.

From Holy Cliparts

I believe in a Son who broke the power of Silence with the piercing cry "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"   This I understand best of all . . . who, this side of heaven, does not?  Anguish is as much of God as joy – how could it not be when so much begs to be cried out against?  How can our hearts not be pierced when God’s own is so wounded?

Dying on the cross he transformed the silence of death into the death of every silence.  Capital ‘S’ silence . . . the fear that there is nothing after all . . . nothing to believe in . . . to rely on . . . to commit to . . . that is the Silence that dies . . . falling into the loving noise of God’s own home welcoming.  And that is very good.

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Affirmation of Faith is from  Massimo Aprile, Italy. In: Rete di Liturgia, 1996, No. 2 © Rete di Liturgia.