Mark 8:27–38

²⁷And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" ²⁸And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." ²⁹And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." ³⁰And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. ³¹And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." ³⁴And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. ³⁶For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? ³⁷For what can a man give in return for his life? ³⁸For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

"Who do you say that I am?" Peter, speaking on behalf of the them all confessed the Apostles' faith in four simple words: "You are the Christ." This was a confession of faith; a creed. This is the first creed recorded in the New Testament and so we might consider it the first Apostles' Creed. In those four words he was saying everything that we say on Sunday morning when we confess our faith with the Apostles' Creed.

However, he had a completely different idea about who Christ was than many of us today. Today many of us have learned the creed wrongly. It is probably the fault of those who taught it to us. It is certainly the fault of our culture. For most of us faith in Christ is reduced to mere words; if I can memorize and say the Creed, or the chief parts of Doctrine, or pass an exam on Biblical knowledge then I can become a member of the church. If I agree with a certain set of propositional statements I am a Christian. Too often our faith is reduced to merely believing in a creed or a series of abstract concepts like "justification" or "redemption" or "atonement." Things which we all claim to believe but few of us could even articulate in words or know what they really mean.

However, there was something substantially different about the Creed of Peter: "I believe that you are the Christ," he confessed. His faith was not in a concept or an idea, his faith was in a PERSON, Jesus Christ. Faith for St. Pater and the Apostles was not agreeing with certain statements, it was a relationship with the Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth. It was a relationship comprehended in the word "Father."

I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

The Apostles' Creed tells who God is, who we are, and what is our relationship to God. The Creed tells us what it means to be Christians in the world today. It tells us that God is a loving God with a tender, fatherly heart. He is not a mere impersonal force or energy field. He is a living, rational, thinking and feeling being. He created us, human beings, to be his children. He created us to love us, take care of us, and nourish us. He created us so he could bless us, be with us and dwell in our midst. Then he created the world, the universe, the stars and planets all for us and gave them to us as a gift of his love in order to sustain our lives, to feed us, to clothe us, and also to enjoy, to show us his goodness, his beauty, his love. We are highly exalted over all creation for he made us to be his own, a prized possession: his treasure.

But we humans spurned his love. Our first fathers on behalf of the entire human race, turned away from the Father, Creator of heaven and earth. The spurned his love, and did not want anything to do with him.

Having turned away from God, we humans became self-centered, thinking first of ourselves, our plans, our motives, our wants instead of God's love and presence. We became like St. Pater when Jesus foretold of his death and Peter took Jesus off to the side and said, "God forbid it Lord! This shall never happen to you." But Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." We all too often set our mind on the things of man. We live our lives seeking our self-interests. We live as if God did not see the things we do, or hear the things we say, or know the things we think. We look out for ourselves, our comfort, our welfare. We live for the almighty dollar. We live to amass the treasures of this world. We live for pleasure and entertainment. We don't want responsibility, we want fun and thrills. We want status, power, and respect from others. We hurt and offend others and then feel good about it, self-righteously thinking we are better than they.

And this is not limited to only our life outside the church. Even here within the church we all too often are seeking our own benefit. We have our niche carved out in the congregation and we jealously guard our turf, our position, our power, our status. We are more interested in accusing, criticizing, and pointing fingers at one another than loving one another. We are more interested in what others can do for us than in serving others and being helpful to one another. We become more concerned about the things of the church than about the things of God. We are more worried about the business of the church than about the business of the kingdom.

And Jesus turns and says to us: "Get behind me Satan!" Just as Peter became an obstacle to the mission of Christ, so we often become an obstacle to the mission of Christ even here in the church, opposing or blocking those things that would spread the gospel and reach out to those in need, because, like Peter, we too often set our mind on the things of man, not on the things of God. We often are not interested in God's agenda, or hearing and studying his word, or living for him, spreading his word, reaching out by evangelism, or helping out neighbors in their needs, in their poverty, and in their suffering. We are interested in our own agendas, our own positions, and our own status in the eyes of men.

But in spite of our rebellion and sin, the heart of God is not capable of becoming bitter toward us. He continues to come after us and seeks to draw us back to himself. He is a God who desires to live amongst us; to take up his dwelling in us; to be our loving Father. Like the father of the prodigal son, he never gives up hope and comes running toward us to meet us. He wants to receive us back into his family. He wants to fix up these twisted and darkened hearts. He wants to make us vessels fit to be His residence so he can come into us and make us his dwelling place.

The Creed tells us of this love and to what great extremes he went in order to repair our brokenness. For in order to make us fit dwelling places for a holy God, He sent his ONLY SON JESUS CHRIST, to become OUR LORD. That is to purchase us for himself and make us his people. To clean us up and make us a proper residence for himself. And he did this by being:

CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY, SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, CRUCIFIED, DIED AND BURIED. HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD. HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN AND SITS AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY. FROM THENCE HE WILL COME TO JUDGE THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.

This tells us what it means to be a Christian. It means that God loved us so much that he gave over unto death his only begotten Son. He sacrificed his Son on the altar like Abraham who took his son up to Mt. Moriah. It means that instead of visiting us with his anger and fury against our sin, consuming us with the fire of his wrath, annihilating us as he did the people in the times of Noah, he visited his Son, Jesus Christ with his anger and punishment. He caused his fiery wrath to burn against his Son and consume him in the eternal fire of punishment. It means that Jesus Christ stands between us and God's destroying wrath and becomes our shield, protecting us from destruction by placing himself in the path of God's anger toward sin thus blocking it from us.

The Creed is not a series of statements that we are supposed to agree to; it is our life, our salvation, our rescue from sin. It is freedom from God's punishment. It is freedom from sin and death. It is release from the power of sin that owns our mortal bodies. We are set free because of the holy, innocent suffering and death of our beloved Lord, Jesus Christ. And we are exalted by Christ's resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven and his sitting on the right hand of God the Father almighty. Mankind is exalted to the highest level in heaven because there, on the throne of heaven, is sitting a man. A real, live human being. One of us. There to represent us before God. And that man, Jesus Christ, will one day return to be the judge of all humanity.

And the creed goes on from telling us who God is and who we are in Christ to telling us how to be Christians in the world today. We live as Christians in the world of today by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT, who creates the HOLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS, who pours out THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS on us so that at the RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD we will share in LIFE EVERLASTING.

Living as Christians in the world today means being filled with the Holy Spirit. We are filled with the Holy Spirit ONLY through the Word of God. That word which creates faith in us at the baptismal font. That word which instructs us from lectern and pulpit on our journey to death and full communion with God. That word which incarnates itself in bread and wine at the altar so we can eat and drink the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. We are filled with the Spirit of God when we hear, read and study the Word of God and only in the Word of God. Being filled with the Holy Spirit he creates a new creation in us. He makes us new and restores us to the image of God. But God comes not to us in no other way. That is why to live as a Christian means coming to worship, to Bible study, and to daily prayer and meditation on the word so that we may daily be filled by the Spirit of God's power and presence.

And we are only fit vessels for the Spirit of God to dwell in us because of the cross of Jesus Christ. So Jesus told his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him. And what is our cross? Our cross is the privilege we have been given of bearing one another's burdens. The Holy Spirit creates the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, so that we may bear one another's burdens. In baptism we are born into a family to love and care for each other. We come and lay our burden at the foot of the cross each Sunday so that the entire community of saints might lift it off our shoulders and carry it for us. We are not a family or a communion of saints when we criticize, blame, and point fingers. We are not a communion of saints when we harbor resentment and bitterness. That is breaking the communion; it is wounding the body of Christ. We are the communion of saints when we pick up the burdens of the weaker members, and carry the loads of one-another. We are a communion of saints only when we forgive each other their sins and failures. We are a communion of saints when we help those in need and give strength to the weak and poor.

And there is still another cross we will soon bear as well. The Creed itself is one of our crosses. Being a Christian in the world today means confessing our faith in Christ; letting our light shine, being the salt of the earth, telling others about Christ, inviting our friends to hear about the Forgiveness of Sin. We confess our faith with the Creed.

But today's world is hostile to Christ, just as the Roman world was hostile to Christ. Just as the Apostles themselves suffered, were imprisoned, lashed, and executed for confessing their faith expressed in the Apostles' Creed, so we too will be persecuted for our confession of faith. Living as a Christian in the world today is not for wimps or weaklings. Only those with the faith of St. Paul and the stamina of St. Peter will survive the persecutions and hostility that the world is beginning to throw at us. Today we do not live in the same world we did 50 or 60 years ago. Back then the church was seen to be a good thing in the community having a positive influence on people, helping the needy and being a beacon of hope in the world. But today is different. Religion in general is seen as a negative thing, an obstacle to social progress, the root of all social problems and a repression of our freedom to have and enjoy lust and sinful desires. Society today expresses this philosophy by enacting tax laws and zoning regulations targeted at churches to limit if not eliminate them. Freedom of speech is curtailed in ways that will make it impossible for churches to proclaim the gospel from their pulpits. In many situations today it is illegal or dangerous to confess your faith in the public square. Laws are being considered this moment that would curtail Christian broadcasters from proclaiming the gospel and that would prohibit pastors from preaching God's law in the pulpit. Choking taxes, harassment, loss of jobs, even imprisonment for Christians who confess their faith are on the horizon in this country.

But "greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world." "No amount of tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword can separate us from the love of Christ. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us and gave his life for us. Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

For this reason we stand up and boldly confess our faith in the words of the Apostles' Creed. Let the world and Satan and all hell's hordes throw their darts and brandish their swords. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Let them threaten, curse, persecute, and even put us to death. For we believe in the RESURRECTION OF THE BODY AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING. Death is merely the portal through which we enter into eternal and full communion in the blessedness of God.

Amen.