Apostles' Creed

The following sermons comprise a series on The Apostles' Creed that I preached at St. John's United Methodist Church in Dover, NH in 2004.  You can read about the origins and history of the creed here.

Below is the text of the creed.  I have linked each line to the sermon about that line.  There are twelve sermons total. (Note that the first line contains two links.)

John 20:1-9, 19-31; 1 Cor. 15:33-49

If you have been with us for the past few months, you know that this morning we arrive at the end of a long discussion of the Apostle's Creed. Line by line we have examined the teachings of the Christian faith and here, on Easter morning, we reach both the end of the Creed and the beginning of faith...the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

TEXT: 1 John 1:5-10

We’re almost there. For months now we have been preparing for our journey into mission by examining the map left to us by the ancients…the Apostle’s Creed. We have gone through controversial lines, misunderstood lines, historical lines, and confusing lines. By contrast, this week we come to a simply difficult line…a line we basically understand and, I think, a line where we have at least a gut level of agreement. When it comes to the forgiveness of sins, however, we find it terribly difficult to actually do.

TEXT: Hebrews 12:1-4

The parsonage lights were burning even later than usual this week as a couple of innocent questions sent me on a wild romp through my family genealogy. Courtesy of the Mormon website, which I believe is the most extensive, free genealogy site available online, I was able to follow my mother’s line all the way back into the pre-history of the British Isles. It seems her family pretty much owned all of England, Scotland, and Ireland up until about 1000 AD.

TEXT: John 16:12-15; Acts 2:1-18

This week we move into the second part of the Creed. The first part was almost exclusively about the nature and life of Jesus, but in this second part we branch out to a listing of other Christian beliefs. The difficult piece is that the Creed doesn’t come with study helps. It assumes that those who recite it, know what is meant when they say those things. And in former times, they did. Times have changed, however, and we need to look at these lines to understand what it is we are saying we believe.

TEXT: Luke 6:37-38; Romans 8:1-6

As we continue our travels through the Apostles' Creed, we come to a rather squirmy line: "From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Thinking about the judgment passages of Scripture is not an easy way to pass the morning, but I think we have made them much worse than they need to be. The doctrines surrounding God's judgment of the earth have been some of the most misused in Christian history, and unfortunately we don't have to go back very far in history to see that such abuse continues in modern culture.

TEXT: Luke 24:44-52; 1 Peter 3:18-22

The Pieta, by Michelangelo

TEXT: Matthew 27:27-31; Isaiah 53:1-9

Anunciation, by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, 1850

CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

TEXT: Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:46-55

TEXT: Matt. 3:13-17; 2 Sam. 7:11b-16