For Our Salvation

 Seventh Wednesday after Pentecost

Lectionary Texts:

Wednesday:

OT: 2 Samuel 6:1-5

NT: Ephesians 1:1-10

Thursday:

OT: 2 Samuel 6:6-15

NT: Ephesians 1:11-15

Today we take up again our discussion of things that are in the Nicene Creed but not in the Apostles' Creed:

For us and for our salvation
        he came down from heaven:

 

It's surprising that nothing about salvation is mentioned in the Apostles' Creed. The Nicene Creed makes two important statements in the lines quoted above. I'll deal with the second one first. Jesus was with God from before the beginning of time. At one particular brief time in human history, at one particular and very important place, the Trinity chose for Jesus to become incarnate, to come to earth in the flesh, We do not know why the Trinity picked this place or this time. Jesus could have become incarnate in New York City in 2021. For many folks the particularity of Jesus is problematic. The vastness, universality, and eternity of God is easier to accept than the particularity of Jesus. The big God became a little man. The eternal God became a man who lived 33 years and died. 

 

"Came down from heaven." I remember that when the first Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, came back from orbit, he declared that there was no heaven. He had been up there and didn't see it. Fortunately most of us have a more sophisticated cosmology than the cosmonaut. Heaven is a different dimension of reality from space or time. We use the terms up and down not in a spatial sense, but down in the sense of what is perceptible in our dimensions of reality up in the sense, of what is not perceptible in our reality realm. 

 

There is a certain rhythm in the up and down of the incarnation. Jesus descends from heaven to the womb of Mary and is made man by the Holy Spirit. After his death and resurrection,  he ascends back to the realm of heaven. That rhythm is clear in the Christ hymn of Philippians 2:5-11.

 

Notice that the Creed says, "For us and our salvation." (Italics mine). Jesus came not just for our salvation but for much more, to show us the way to life, life in him, life in the Spirit, abundant life. The world is not just something to do our three score and ten in, so we can then get to where we really want to go, heaven. No, the world is something that God created for us and gave us to obligation to care for, to care for the world itself and for all its inhabitants--animals, plants, and each other. Jesus showed and told us how to do that. 

 

The rabbis talked about us humans as having two inclinations, and inclination to do good, and an inclination to do bad (or wrong, wicked, evil). Too often our evil inclination gets the best of us. We knowingly do things that we know are wrong. In God's universal justice there is forgiveness for our wrong-doing. Jesus brings us that forgiveness. The forgiveness Jesus brings enables our salvation. Our faith in Christ ensures that salvation. I cannot speak to the salvation of those who do not know Christ or reject him. Their eternity is God's business, not mine. But I do know my eternity. Through Christ my salvation is assured. For that blessing I am grateful and will be grateful eternally.

 

Lord Jesus,

Your life on earth was and is our blessing. Thank you for showing us the way to abundant life. Help us to live lives of gratitude, to be reflections of your light, O light of the world. Amen.

 

Faithfully,

Christian