Over the coming weeks we will be posting short comments on what Christians believe, based on the words we use each Sunday in our worship.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth…
Christians believe that God ‘speaks’ to us in many ways: through nature, the great world religions, and in those we meet. But, supremely, we believe he ‘speaks to us’ in Jesus of Nazareth, a 1st century Jew. The Bible calls Jesus ‘the Word of God become flesh.’ Jesus is for us the translation into flesh and blood of God. His life, death, resurrection, teaching, and actions, show us who God is: our Father and Creator.
Our Father
Jesus called God ‘Father’ and taught us to do the same but of course that does not make God male! The Bible also uses mothering language about God because God is beyond gender. All human words are inadequate to describe God. ‘Father/Mother’ language reminds us that God loves and cares for us a father and mother do for their children. It invites us to trust that God is always there, loving us, even (especially!) when life is difficult.
Creator
Believing that God is our Creator means that we acknowledge God to be the hidden power within and behind all that is. It does not commit us to a literalist reading of the Bible, which uses symbolic language to teach us that truth – ideas like God ‘working’ and ‘resting’, etc. As with ‘Father’ the word ‘Creator’ teaches us that behind the universe lies an infinite goodness. We know this because God has told us so, and tells us every day, in Jesus.
Christian faith means letting go into God, in trust…
God our Creator and Father,
whose Son, Jesus, the light unfailing,
has come from heaven to deliver the world from the darkness of ignorance:
open the eyes of our understanding
that we may know the way of life,
and walk in it without stumbling;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen