If you’re like many of the people I pastor, you may be struggling with how to connect deeply and honestly with your faith. Maybe you’ve experienced not just a disappointment with God but a disconnection from Christianity as you’ve seen it be corrupted or co-opted by cultural forces and personal agendas; as you’ve watched church leaders fail and fall and cause great harm. Maybe you feel like walking away; or you’re wondering where you belong, and you live with a kind of spiritual homelessness.
There is hope.
The old farmers on the American prairies used to prepare for a winter storm by putting up a rope between the house and the barn. They did this because they knew that in a swirling blizzard, even a brief distance like the walk from their house to the barn, could be disorienting. A familiar journey could become a strange terrain, leaving them to freeze in the cold winter night. But with the rope, they knew they could find their way home.
In a similar way, the early Christians put up a “rope” to help us find our way in confusing times. At a time when Christianity was growing and spreading to different regions, and false teachers were gaining popularity, hundreds of church leaders convened to crystalize the core confession of Christian faith. We call it the Nicene Creed. For 1700 years, the Creed has served the church as a rope to help us find our way back home.
Here are three ways the Nicene Creed anchors our faith:
First, the Creed is a purifier. It helps us recognize the ways we’ve added things to Christianity or given less important things the same weight as essential elements. Do we elevate personal opinions or cultural preferences to the same level as the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection?
The Creed returns us to the heart of our faith: Christianity is about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s the story of a good Creator, a loving Savior, and a very present Life-Giver. It’s not that other issue of doctrine or biblical interpretation don’t matter; it’s just that they don’t get added to the essence of faith, the irreducible minimum of Christianity.
Secondly, the Creed is a Unifier. Our differences matter. Diversity can reflect a creative God who helps us discern what it means to follow Jesus in different contexts. But when our points of distinction become points of division, we’ve missed the mark.
The Creed helps us recover what’s at the center. Like an old wagon wheel. The further the spokes get from the center, the further they get from each other. But the closer the spokes move toward the center, the closer they move to each other. By “center”, I don’t mean a mushy middle between two extremes. I mean “core”—the beating heart of faith that gives us courage to say, “If you belong to Jesus, you belong to me.”
The “We” in the Creed’s opening lines—the same opening lines of each major section—remind us that faith is personal but never truly individual. Faith did not originate with us, and faith does not depend on us. When our faith is weak, someone else’s faith is strong. Faith is not like a one-person kayak, where if you’re struggling to row the oars of belief you have no choice but to just get out of the boat. Faith is like a giant rowing ship. There are billions of Christians around the world and billions more who have gone before. If you are struggling with doubt, with disappointment, or disbelief, you might have to set your oars down for a season. Maybe you can’t serve or lead in the ways you once did. But stay in the boat. Let others row for you. That’s the strength the community of faith. The Creed reminds us that we are not alone.
Thirdly, the Creed is a Magnifier. The Creed is not an end in itself. We are tempted to treat it like a statement of faith, but it is much more. It is a call to worship. In fact, for many Christians all around the world the Creed is said in the context of worship precisely for this reason. These words, drawn from the phrases of Scripture, hold up a magnifying glass to the character of God.
When we behold the Father, we see that God is the source of all that is— “seen and unseen”. That means that He is the giver of every good and perfect gift, from the stuff we have to the people we love to the joy that we feel. More than that, it means all the gifts themselves are not where joy comes from but only what joy comes through.
When we behold the Son, we see that the eternal, beloved, Son of God “through whom all things were made” did not grasp onto this status but came down from heaven “for us and for our salvation”. The only two human names in the entire Creed are found in this paragraph about the incarnation: Mary and Pilate. The lowly peasant girl and the powerful politician. The picture of purity and the portrait of corruption. Both of them and all of us are in need of saving, and our Savior came for us, all of us.
When we behold the Spirit, we see the Giver of Life who continues to build up His Church, making us both one and holy. We hear the Spirit speaking through what was spoken, the very Word of God.
This ancient confession of faith was left for us to help us find our way in the swirling storm of confusion and corruption. If we take these words into our hearts, if by God’s grace we go beyond saying them to understanding them, and beyond understanding them to living like these words are true, then we will know we have found our way home.