GIVING THANKS FOR BOTH / AND

Give thanks to him who made the heavens so skillfully. 

His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 136:5

This one verse is loaded with poignancy!  It speaks of the transcendent One who made the vast expanse of the heavens, so vast it is beyond our comprehension.  He is the God who transcends our imagination far above our greatest capacities to fathom even the most superficial appreciation of his nature.  Yet we know from our own experience and the testimony to himself by which God reveals his nature in his Word:  "His faithful love endures forever."  The psalmist’s proclamation contrasts God’s transcendence with his immanence.  Though lofty above imagination, he is so personal, near, and intimate in his love for us.  It is a love that is pure, sacrificial, life-giving, and enduring in its faithfulness.  Is God only transcendent, sovereign and too distant for us to really know and to be known?  Or is God truly immanent, so immanent that he is really just an imagined reflection of our own understanding of our selves projected onto “god”?

The truth is conjunctive, both/and.  We find it in Scripture and summarized in the first two statements of the Apostle’s Creed:

1.     I believe in God, Almighty, creator of heaven and earth,

2.     And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord

The psalmist captures the both/and again in Psalm 8:1,3,4 – “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth . . . When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?

We are reminded of the conjunctive (both/and) of Jesus, both one hundred percent human and one hundred percent divine, transcendent with the Father and immanent now through the Holy Spirit, so far above and exalted, so close and immeasurably more loving than we could ask or imagine.

The psalmist in the lead psalm above (136:5) who speaks of the conjunctive of God’s transcendence and immanence, his remoteness and intimacy, strikes the only chord of our hearts that is possible calling us to “GIVE THANKS!” 

O Lord, our thanksgiving spills over in to praise.  You are both/and . . .

 We give thanks to you.  In all your unimaginable power and might,

you faithfully  love us with an everlasting love!  Amen

THE TIE THAT TRULY BINDS

In Christianity across the world too often there appears to be irreconcilable differences, tensions, and hostilities between the many versions of the Christian faith.  Love of neighbor and unity in Christ are too often difficult to find.  However, when Christians are regularly tortured and martyred in the most oppressive, dangerous parts of the world (Pakistan, northern Nigeria, Somalia) those distinctive differences don't seem to matter to those doing the atrocities.  A Christian is a Christian and believed to be an infidel worthy of death.  In the worldwide Christian community of faith, where's the unity in Christ and the tie that truly binds?  What is the foundation of our faith irrespective of the differences that seemingly divide?

Over the next few weeks, Christendom, the holy, catholic (universal) church in all its glory, will celebrate God the Father’s great gift. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, it is the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. Glory to God!  Anticipating once again the unity of all believers in the great celebration we call Christmas, this is a good time to revisit the central teachings of the Christian faith, those teachings that are ascribed to by all Christian, at all times, everywhere.  To do so, we have a resource that clearly summarizes the essential truths of our universally  shared faith, The Apostles' Creed.

We need not wait to recite this historic statement as part of our collective worship.  We can recite it and meditate on it devotionally in our quiet, personal time with God we reserve each day. We may also engage it in our small group fellowship or family devotional time together.  Every word and phrase of this means of grace comes directly from Scripture.

Engaging the Apostle’s Creed at this time of year, personally and communally, makes sense.  In the celebration of Christmas, we participate in a world-wide common confession of faith with the great mosaic of brothers and sisters in Christ including Methodists, Baptists, Catholic, Pentecostals, Salvationists, Calvinists, nearly two billion of the faithful that make upon the universal Body of Christ.

The Apostles’ Creed is the common articulation of the tie that binds our hearts and souls together in a global love response of joy and glory to God.  It does more than unite us in our faith in our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  It binds us to the multitude of saints gone before us over the millennia in a glorious witness of God’s grace and faithfulness.

Read and meditate on the Apostles’ Creed this Christmas season.  To access it just Google: The Apostles’ Creed.  Prepare to be blessed by God as you join the universal celebration of Christmas in affirming the truths we hold so dear to our common faith.  Thanks be to God!  Glory to His name.