Faith, Grace, and Hope

I've recently been working with confirmands on the Apostle's Creed. The culmination of our learning was to write a statement of faith of our own. I was asked, of course, about how long it needed to be. I replied that it didn't matter how long it was, so much as that it covered the person's understanding of God. I said it could be a haiku, for that matter, as long as it did the job. Thus, I challenged myself to write my own faith statement in 17 syllables. Here it is: Source of all being Bringing forth life in season Theopneustos : all grace.  Theopneustos = God-breathed.

This sermon had many off-the-cuff remarks, but the notes are enough to get a general idea.  Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22 ; Mark 1:9-15 The basis of “he descended to the dead” in the Apostle’s Creed finds its roots in the 1 Peter reading. Along with a verse from Ephesians and one from Hebrews, a whole doctrine has been constructed around what Jesus did, as the Christ, in the interim between being laid bodily in the tomb and being resurrected, of the same body, on Easter morning. Late Christian writings, circa 325 ce , refer to this time as the “harrowing of hell”, wherein Christ descended to the place of the dead, spoke the words of triumph to Satan, and offered the good news of the gospel to all those who would hear it. Eastern Orthodox traditions have a profound iconographic tradition around the harrowing of hell- showing the gates shattered, demons bound, and Jesus lifting Adam and Eve up from the pit by their wrists. (By the wrist is important, since by the han...