There is a time to kneel and a time to stand, and we stand for the Gospel and the Nicene Creed. With red prayer book in hand or heart, we recite the words that crossed the lips of fourth century Christians and rise today in congregations across the globe.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We believe together and affirm it as one, unlike the “I” of the Apostles Creed I grew up memorizing, the “I” of Protestant work ethic and personal salvation. With the Nicene Creed, we gather and we believe, we empty-nesters and octogenarians, families, friends, blue bloods, and the 47%.
There are times we believe on each other’s behalf, like the men who brought their friend to Jesus, lowering him through the roof tiles: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” It was their faith that sparked his healing, body and soul.
I believed for you when your heart was fearful. You believed for me when my foot slipped. We steady the knees that give way; we speak and believe.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We recite the Creed every Sunday, even when the diocese schismed and hearts rent. It was a divorce from which our community has yet to fully recover.
But there were streams amid desert as saints kept their watch. The men’s Bible study never stopped gathering at the Christian camp for coffee and prayer. The generous buoyed the struggling, as always, and we celebrated, grieved, and served together, because there’s always been more that unites us than that which divides. Christ’s diasporic Church is catholic still.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We speak the words like prophesy. Like the Word, we exhale life, ordering the chaos. There is
One Lord
One faith, to
One hope are we called
Jim Wallis is known for saying, “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change.”
We do believe, LORD. Help us overcome our unbelief.
