Rev. Tatiana Cantarella

Philippians 2:5-11; Romans 5:12-21; Hebrews 1:1-5; Matthew 1:18-25; John 1:1-5, 14-18

Series of sermons on the Apostle's Creed

02: I believe …in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, our Lord,

conceived from the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.

Last week we talked about the first line of the Apostle’s Creed. We searched the Scriptures and concluded that true Christian faith is an absolute trust to God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth – the God of infinite power and infinite love, Who created everything and everyone and continues to sustain His creation with His loving hand. He is the Source of our life and our heart will never find peace until it finds peace in our God the Father.Today we will talk about the second statement of the Creed: "I believe …in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, our Lord, conceived from the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” In fact we’ve reached the part of the Creed, which takes 50 out 75 (Russian) words of the Creed – the proclamation about Jesus Christ.  That can only mean one thing: Jesus Christ is the center of the Christian faith, He is its corner stone and essence.  We can be wrong about some secondary issue of faith and remain Christians but not here! 2/3 of the Creed deals with Jesus Christ and we will have to spend at least three Sundays (although it could be more!) talking about Him.

So. Who is Jesus Christ? Where form and what for did He come? And what does His coming mean for my life? In fact this is not a new question. Gospel of Matthew 16:13–16 tells a story of Jesus and His conversation with His disciples in Caesarea Philippi. Jesus asks them: "Who do people think that I am?” And they gave Him four responses: "John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or another prophet”.  Even during His lifetime people could not understand Who He was.  Not much has changed today. Just go to the Internet chat where faith issues are discussed and you will find tons of contemporary answers to Who Jesus is. Here are just some of them: "a good person, God’s Son, a prophet, a teacher of God’s law, Savior, a wise man, just a man, a misunderstood teacher of morality, a crazy religious fanatic, an invention of the early church…” But what is your answer? That day in Caesarea Philippi Jesus redirected this question towards His own disciples: "But who do you think that I am?” We can’t get away with quoting other people’s opinions. We must make our own decision about Jesus and that decision will define our destiny.  Unfortunately, millions of people who claim to believe in Jesus at the same time do not know what the Bible says about Him.  And the question is – what kind of Jesus do you believe in, my Christian brothers and sisters?

Saying "I believe in Jesus…” doesn’t only imply us knowing His name.  His name was given to Jesus even before He was born. God Himself told Joseph to call the baby that Mary will give birth to – Jesus.  This name is Hebrew is Joshua (Yeshua) which means "God saves”. This name given to this Baby pointed to the fact that in Him God enters into the human world in order to save it: "you shall name Him Jesus for He will save His people from their sins” (Mtt. 1:21). But what is this salvation and why do the people need it?

Last time we talked about God the Creator who created this world and every living soul (including humans) with love. God gave the people everything they need. The Scriptures say that initially God and man were in close relationships and constant communication.  God created humans as a free being because only a free being can truly love God.  But this freedom also meant that people could make a different choice and to rebel against God, rejecting the joy that was prepared for him or her. In chapter three of Genesis we read that people, unfortunately, made such a choice. The Bible says that God gave people everything that they needed for happiness and for fullness of life. But God also warned them about the things that they should be careful with otherwise they will perish. God warned them because He loved them.  However, humans faced a temptation and began doubting God’s love thinking: "maybe God prohibited that to me because He is hiding something good from me, because He has something that He doesn’t want to share with me.” The essence of what Adam and Eve did was not primarily taking and eating some fruit but the fact that they doubted God’s love and stopped trusting Him and thus acted against His will.  It is this offence, this disobedience to God and His loving plan we call sin.   Sinning, that is consciously breaking God’s known law we act as the highest and the only lords of our own life, we break our relationship with God and shy away from doing His will and keeping His law. And the more one sins, making decisions and taking actions against God’s initial plan for our life, the more the light of divine life dies within us, and the more God’s image and that ideal of humanity that God intended for people is distorted.  Scriptures tells us that this first rebellion against God (that we call "the fall”) threw humans into such a condition of unrighteousness that is now corrupts every person who is born in this world. That’s what Paul tells Romans in his letter: "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

However, God in His love could not leave his lost humanity without help.  Already in Genesis 3:15 God says to the serpent who tempted the people not to trust God that the woman will give birth to the One who will fight against him and will overcome.  All of the Old Testament is full of the promises of the One who will come to save the people from their sin. He will be the descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He will be from the tribe of Judah and the descendent of David. He will be born of the virgin. He will be born in Bethlehem. If you take everything that the Old Testament says about this promised Savior you will see that there is only One in whom ALL these promises were fulfilled – the Son of Mary, Jesus Christ.  We proclaim: "I believe in Jesus Christ” and I want to clarify right away that Christ is not Jesus’ last name but a title. "Christ” comes from the Greek word that means "the anointed one” that is borrowed from the Jewish "Messiah”. In the Old Testament prophets, priests and kings were anointed with old at the beginning of their mission or task that signified that they were called by God. That’s why to call Jesus the Christ means that He is the one whom God promised to send to deliver the people of Israel and to save the world.

But it is very important to understand that God didn’t just send anybody to save the world.  For many centuries God tried to call His people back to Him be sending His prophets who were spoke His words and called the people back to God but to no avail. Hebrews says (1:1-2): "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.” That’s why the Creed proclaims:  "I believe in Jesus Christ, His [God’s] only Son”. Saying "only Son” it means "one of a kind”, "absolutely unique”.  Scriptures often calls people "God’s children” but Jesus is the Only Son who unlike us is not just a human being but God Himself who took upon Himself human flesh. John and Hebrews both tell us that Jesus was with God from the beginning, He was with Him even before the creation of the world and participated in this creation.  And then "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). Jesus said: "I and the Father are One” (Jn. 10:30). God in His love came into this world embodied in the human form to save His perishing creation. But how could one possibly understand this?

There was a man who thought Christmas was nonsense. He was not a bad person, on the contrary – a very good man, kind and generous and very honest in his relationships with people. And he was too honest to pretend like he believed. "I don’t want to disappoint you,” he said to his wife who regularly went to Church, "but I just can’t understand the statement that God could become a man.  It makes no sense to me”. On Christmas Eve his wife and children went to church but he remained at home.  "I don’t want to be a hypocrite”, he said to his wife, "I better stay at home and wait for you”.  Soon after his family left it started snowing. He got comfortable in his armchair near the fire and was reading a newspaper. In a few minutes he was startled by a thump. Then he heard another one. And another. He thought that someone was throwing snowballs into his window.

He opened the door to see what it was and saw a bunch of frozen birds that were trying to fly into his window. They must have been overtaken by weather, and in search of shelter tried to fly out the window. "I cannot let the poor birds to freeze," - he thought - "But how can I help them?" He remembered about his barn: that would be a nice place for the birds to hide. He quickly got dressed and stomped through the deep snow to the barn. He opened the door wide and turned on the light. But the birds did not fly there. "I need to lure them" - he thought, and ran home to get some bread, and sprinkled its crumbs on the snow making a stream towards the barn. To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread and kept flapping their wings in deep snow. He tried to drive them into the barn walking around them and waving his arms. The birds flew in different directions, but not to a warm barn full of light. "I guess I seem as a strange and frightening creature to them”- he said to himself – "how can I make them understand that they can trust me? If I could only become a bird for a few minutes, I would have probably led them to a safe the place." And at that moment the church bells rang. He stood still, listening to the ringing that was announcing the good news of Christ’s Birth. Then he fell to his knees right there in the snow. "Now I understand, God," - he uttered - "Now I know why you did it, why you have come."

Friends, the fall of mankind alienated us from God so much that people began considering God distant and intimidating. And He, the Great and Holy God, in order to bring us salvation decided to become one of us and to come into this world ruled by evil and sin in order to restore us to Himself. Jesus Christ, according to the Scriptures, is "the Son of God" (in the sense of "God the Son") and therefore is worthy of the same worship, reverence, praise and service, which we render to God the Father. Too many people today speak of Jesus as a "good man", the prophet but do not take the words of the Bible seriously that He is the God himself who became a man. C.S. Lewis in his book "Mere Christianity" reminds us that we do not have this choice:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him or kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to”.

Scriptures time and again proclaims that Jesus is the God-man, the only One "full of grace and mercy” and at the same time freely "clothed in human weakness” for our sake. It is about this duality that the Creed reminds us saying, "He was conceived by the Holy Spirit” and "Born of the virgin Mary”. The fact that He was born from the earthly mother makes Him one of us and the fact that He was not born from the seed of a man but from God makes Him the new Adam. God begins creating New Humanity in Him!  And that line of generations that continually replaced one another from the times of Adam, the line of all increasing sin and alienation from God was broken with the birth of Jesus. Paul says: "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people” (Rom. 5:17, 18).

Another title of Jesus, which we heard today, has direct consequences for you and me. Jesus is called "our Lord", which is inseparable from His Divinity. In the Bible, the word "Lord" means "autocratic ruler" - a title appropriate only for God. Paul tells the Romans: "If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (10:9). Declaring with your mouth that does not mean simply saying the words, but agreeing wholeheartedly with what you say. When I say, "Jesus Christ is the Lord," that means that in my life there is no authority above him. If Jesus Christ, the Son of God is our Lord, then He is the Master. It defines our lives, He determines our way because we know that only He can bring us back to God and break our life cycle of sin. To proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord means to subdue all our life to Him and to follow Him wherever He leads us and whatever it will cost us because He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

I would like to finish this sermon with the words of Paul, with which we began our service today. Paul wrote that because Jesus chose to leave His divine glory and voluntarily become a man, to obey by humbling Himself and even accepting an undeserved death, God "bestowed on him the name above all names” and "to the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father!" Many people did not recognize Jesus as Lord and Savior during His life on earth. People still do not recognize him. But the day will come when everything will change when everyone will bow their knees before him, and every tongue will exhale: "My Lord and my God" (as Thomas did when he met the risen Jesus). Only then for some people it will be an exclamation of salvation, while for others a sigh of surprise and disappointment. We are all (whether now or later) will have to respond to God’s question: "But who do you say Jesus is for you?" What do we respond? And will our lives confirm our response?