Month: November 2025

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The Nicene Creed, Part 3

Title slide with photos of Bluemont and Mayberry Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Church
November 9, 2025
John 14:8-17

Sermon recorded on Thursday, November 6, 2025 at Bluemont Church

Before the beginning of worship:
At the end of the summer, billboards started appearing around our area. They read: “Jesus is not God: Jesus did not preexist in heaven.” One was on Highway 52, just outside of Fancy Gap. 

This set off a firestorm, and many people became upset. Some complained to the county supervisors to have the signs removed. But the free speech amendment in the Constitution tied the \supervisors’ hands. A few became angry and resorted to vandalism. Some of the signs they spray painted out the “NOT,” so that the sign read, “Jesus is God,” with a black space in the middle. 

While I disagree with the sign, I don’t think we should resort to vandalism of those with whom we disagree. Instead, we should consider this as a challenge. Sometimes, being challenged by ideas with which we disagree helps us sharpen our own faith and understanding. This can be a time for us to dig a bit deeper into our own theology, which is what I hope to do as we continue our exploration of the Nicene Creed this morning. 

Before reading the Scriptures:
Today, in our tour through the Nicene Creek, we’ll begin our exploration of what Jesus the Son means. As I stated two weeks ago, the crisis which led to the Nicene Creed came from a movement within the church known as Arianism. Those who followed this path, led by Bishop Arius of Alexander in Egypt, held that Jesus had been created by God the Father before the foundations of the earth. This clearly put a hierarchy within the godhead. 

Those who disagreed with Arius, pointed out that as a creature, Jesus wouldn’t be very different from us.  The Council of Nicaea was called to work out this dispute, which led to this great creed of the church which established two mysteries, the Trinity and the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. 

As I pointed out last week, you can divide the creed nto three articles based on the Trinity. The short first article focused on God the Father, a topic which didn’t require much space as there was no controversy around the topic at this point in history. But the second article, which focuses on God the Son is longer because of the conflict over the nature of Christ. The Council insists that Jesus and God are the same. The Arian position was condemned as a heresy. 

For my text today, I am going to the Gospel of John. We already heard the opening of the Gospel in our call to worship. There, in John’s prologue, we learn that the Word, another name for Jesus who is God’s revelation, has been with God all along, from the very beginning. In the 14th Chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus claims to be eternal with the Father. 

It’s the night of the Last Supper. Jesus and his disciples gather for the final time before his crucifixion. Almost a quarter of John’s gospel focuses on this one night. Jesus begins by telling the disciples he’s leaving and will prepare a place for him. Thomas gets the first question concerning where Jesus is going and how can they go there if they don’t know where he’s going. 

Next, Philip picks up the questioning in relation to the Father which we’ll see in our reading. 

Read John 14:8-17
Over a period of several weeks, a minister listened to a parishioner tell the same fish story many times. Each time, the fisherman told the story, the fish took on a different dimension. Somethings he made the fish out to be a whale. Other times, the fish sounds like just a lively bass. Finally, the reverend felt he needed to confront this fisherman about his habitual lying. That next Sunday, after worship, he called the man aside. He told him about hearing the same story told in a variety of ways to different listeners. He encouraged him to be truthful. 

“Well, you see,” the fisherman explained. “I must be realistic. I never tell someone more than I think they’ll believe.”[1]

You know, we can only understand and comprehend so much. In our passage this morning from John’s gospel, we must wonder if Jesus overloaded his disciples. He attempts to teach them about the unique relationship between him and God the Father along with our relationship to the Holy Spirit. This is enough to cause our heads to spin. This morning, I want us to concentrate on Jesus’ relationship to the Father. From this passage we learn our knowledge of God comes from our knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is why it’s important to study and know him. From Jesus’ life, we can understand God. 

Our passage begins with Philp begging to see God the Father. “Jesus, that’s all we need. Then we’ll be satisfied.” “Show me,” Philip demands. Sounds like Philip’s descendants may have ended up as residents of Missouri, the “Show Me” state.

You know, in the first chapter of John’s gospel, Philip easily answers God’s call.[2] Perhaps now, after having been with Jesus for three years, Philip begun to wonder just what he got himself into. He desires a grand demonstration, perhaps an encounter like Moses experienced at the burning but not burning bush. Such presentations are rare and would not be forthcoming. 

But let us think about Philip’s question. “Show us the Father, and we’ll believe.” We all would like a bit more evidence. I mean, wouldn’t it be great to see God and that be all it took. Then everyone would believe, right? But it doesn’t work like that. Earlier in this chapter, in his questions and answers with Thomas, Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through me.”[3] Faith involves trust and mystery, which is what the Creed is about as it teaches us about Jesus’ incarnation and the mystery of the Trinity. 

It sounds strange but after living with the Master for three years, the disciples still don’t understand the unique relationship between Jesus, the man, and God the Father. And we should be honest. It’s hard to grasp the idea that God and a man are one in the same, which is the mystery of the incarnation which is at the heart of the Creed. 

I think Jesus emphasizes this relationship on his last night with the disciples to prepare them for what’s ahead. They’re not to be abandoned, but God’s through the Spirit will be with them, guiding them and helping them to do even greater things that what Jesus did during his earthly ministry.  Jesus stuck with them for three years, and through the Spirit, in that unique relationship known as the Trinity, he’ll still be with them and us.

As we saw last week, the idea of God the Almighty Creator wasn’t in debate at Nicaea. But they did debate the relationship of Jesus to God and to us.  The first half of the 2nd Article of the Creed deals with the relationship between God and Jesus. Next week, we’ll look at the second half of the second article, which deals with Jesus’ relationship with us and our salvation. But before we get there, the Creed establishes Jesus as God. This is my argument against that billboard which appeared on roads around western Virginia back in the late summer. 

We’re told in the Creed that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Son of God. But the Creed doesn’t end there. The Creed continues by stating Jesus is eternally begotten. The two may seem similar but by insisting on “eternally begotten,” they imply Christ’s eternal nature with God. This was against the Arians who taught that Jesus was created by God, which would then mean that Jesus is a creature. And we’re not to worship creatures or Creation. We can appreciate creation, as it’s the work of God’s hands, but we only worship God, the Creator. 

Next, the Creed provides a list of parallel traits which may make us wonder. Jesus Christ is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God… each of these emphasize further the eternal nature of Christ. 

Next, we return to the beginning, where we are again reminded that Jesus Christ is begotten not made. Again, this implies Jesus is not a part of God’s creation. This line continues with Christ being of one being with the Father.

This part of the creed used a Greek word, homoousious, which combines the Greek “Homo” meaning “the same” with the word “ousia,” which stems from the word for means “to be.” The Creed emphasizes Jesus as the very essence of God.[4]

It seems those who wrote the Creed went a little overboard in their linking Jesus Christ and God. But this, like the doctrine of the Trinity, is a mystery. While we may not always understand, we accept by faith that Jesus came to show us the way to the Father and by seeing him, the disciples and first witnesses saw the Father. For this reason, Jesus is to be worshipped and adored.  

One of the great hymns of the church, which we’ll sing in a minute, begins, “Crown Him with Many Crowns, the Lamb upon his throne.”[5] This hymn draws upon the vision John has in the fifth chapter of Revelation. There, John glimpses the eternal glory of Christ, a passage I preached on in the summer.[6] But it also reminds us that Christ does more than teach us about how to live. Christ is to be worshipped. And we can do that because we only worship God. And Christ, in some mysterious way we can’t fully grasp, is God. Amen. 

[1] Snappy Steeple Stories, compiled by Oren Arnold, page 43. 

[2] John 1:43.

[3] John 14:6

[4] See Phillip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexman Press, 2023 ), 77

[5] Matthew Bridges wrote the hymn in 1851. The music, Diademata, is by George Job Elvery, written in 1868. 

[6] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/08/03/the-slain-yet-victorious-lamb/

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Reading in October (and a puzzle)

Title slide with covers of both books I reviewed the story

Candice Millard, River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search of the Nile

Cover of "River of Gods"

 (New York: Doubleday, 2022), 349 pages including notes, bibliography, and an index.  In addition are 16 pages of prints. 

It’s amazing that in the middle of the 19th Century, vast areas in places like Africa remained unknown, including the source of the Nile. . In comes Richard Burton, the English explorer, who put together a team to find the source. While he didn’t succeed, one of his assistants and nemesis, John Hanning Speke did discover and document the source of the Nile in a later trip. To put this in context of what was occurring in the world at the time, the first trip was when the Indian Mutiny occurred. Speke’s later expedition was during the American Civil War.

This book is filled with excitement and misadventures. One such event involved an attack attacked in what is now Somalia, which was just as dangerous then as now. In the attack, a spear pierced Burton’s cheeks, leaving him with a lifelong scar. 

I have had this book has been on my radar for several years, but I found myself questioning if it was worthy to read. the time in to read it. But having read the other three books by Candice Millard (The River of Doubt, Destiny of the Republic, and Hero of the Empire), all of which I enjoyed, I finally decided to give this book a try.  I’m glad I did.  

Millard provides biographical information not only of Speke and Burton, but also several others involved in the expedition. One of these, Sidi Mubarak Bombay, was most interesting. An African, his village was attacked when he was a child. Taken to India as a slave, upon the death of his master, he came back to Africa and helped with all the expeditions.  

Burton and Speke’s relationship was always tense. At the end of the expedition, Burton fell ill which delayed his returni to England. Speke, who went ahead of him, claimed credit for the expedition’s finding. The story of Burton and Speke ends tragically. The two were to have a debate, but hours beforehand, Speke died from a gunshot. Was it an accident (as he was a skilled and safe hunter) or did he do it on purpose? 

I found myself interested in Burton and may have to read more about his life. Burton mastered languages. As a non-Muslin (he was mostly agnostic), but with a master of Arabic and having studied the Koran, he traveled to Mecca and participated in the Hajj. Dressing the part, he passed himself off as Shaykh Abdullah. He lived to tell of his adventures which he published in a book. 

 Unlike Speke and most Britains, Burton preferred native dress. He also didn’t see himself as superior just because he was British but respected the people and their customs. However, some things he abhorred such as the Arab slave trade through Africa, which was still going on in the middle of the 19th Century.  However, his interest repulsed many in Victorian England such as translating the Karma Sutra into English. 

A side story in this book is the relationship between Burton and his young wife, Isabel Arundell. To the horror of her mother, Isabel fell for Burton when she was vyoung. They had a long relationship, but because of Burton’s travels and her family’s disapproval, they didn’t marry for some time. Not only was Burton not affluent, the Arundells were Catholic. Isabel had even considered becoming a nun if she couldn’t gain Burton’s interest. She was willing to travel with her husband on his journeys, but Burton was beginning to slow down by the time they married. She remained devoted to him and helped him with his writings. 

 This is an exciting book and, somewhat like the first book I read by Millard, River of Doubt. In River of Doubt, she explores a 1914 expedition by Teddy Roosevelt down one of the uncharted rivers in South America. Both books are good stories with lots of insight into the time and what those involved in the expeditions endured. 

James M. Dixon, Things I’ll Never Forget: Memories of a Marine in Viet Nam, 

Cover photo of "Things I'll Never Forget"

Malcolm Hillgarter, narrator (2018, Brilliance Audio),9 hours and 36 minutes.

Graduating from high school in 1965, and not sure what he wants out of life, Dixon joins the Marines. Describing the dinner where he broke the news to his parents is well told. His mother drops her coffee cup and leaves crying. His father congratulated him, but then you learn the family are Quakers, even though his father had served in World War 2. Dixon had initially wanted to join the Army rangers with a friend. But they discovered he was slightly colorblindness and the Army refused to take him. Leaving, he and his friend talked to the Marine Corp recruiter, who promised all kinds of things which turned out not to be true. Unaware of the lies, the two signed up. 

The first part of the book tells of his experiences in boot camp at Parris Island. I didn’t realize they had shortened basic training and advance infantry training as the war begin to heat up. Humor fills training experience..  After completing these two courses, he heads to school in Camp Pendleton, California, to be trained as a MP (military police). From there, he travels by ship to Vietnam, with stops in Hawaii and Japan.  This was certainly no cruise with the overcrowded ship swaying in the high seas they first experienced leaving the West Coast.

Dixon’s first half of his Vietnam tour was as an MP, mostly guarding the Danang airbase. Then, as happened to many Marines MPs, the Corp transferred him to the grunts. This was much more dangerous as they ran missions into enemy held positions where they set ambushes (and at times found themselves ambushed). He tells the stories straightforward, without glamorizing or glorifying them. Some things he did and saw are hard to stomach. In one battle, he saw a VC dressed figure duck. He shot and then realized it was a boy without a weapon.

On another occasion, they dropped charges into a tunnel, thinking it was a VC hideout only to learn it contained a mother and children.  Once, on an extended mission, they captured two VCs. The Lieutenant had the interpreter to ask one about enemy position.  He refused to say anything, so the Lieutenant pulled his pistol and shot the man in the head. The other captured soldier began to tell them everything. When they felt they had learned what they could, they let him go, only to shot him in the back as he fled.  

Dixon later became a radio operator. This was even more dangerous as radio operators were one of the three most likely positions to be shot by snipers (officers and corpsmen or medics were the other two). He didn’t like this position but when his platoon’s radio operator when down, he was nearby and ordered to pick up the radio. 

During his time in Vietnam, he lost a lot of friends and several of their deaths stick with him. One of the saddest involved two buddies who had spent their time together. One was killed and then booby trapped by the VC, so when the other found his deceased friend, he rolled his body over only to take the bast of a grenade that had been planted under the body.  

I am still not sure about this book. I can’t understand a Quaker who tells such stories without judgment. However, the book is well written. The author, after Vietnam, taught school for over 30 years. 

After a period of dryness, the end of October turned cool and rainy. And, with watching an incredible World Series, it was time to pull out a puzzle. This is “The World of Jane Austen,” and is the third such puzzle we’d done, the other two focusing on Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.

Puzzle,"The World of Jane Austen"
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Nicene Creed #2: God the Father

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
November 2, 2025
Genesis 1:1-5 and Job 38:1-7

At the beginning of worship: 
In her delightful book of essays titled, Things That Are, Amy Leach ponders God.

The people say the word repeatedly, and the more they repeat it, the less I can understand it: listening to words I do not understand is like swallowing stones. With each repetition of the word it is like I am given another stone to swallow… The word refers to someone no one has ever seen. Perhaps this is why people say it over and over, as if repetition of a word can make up for the absence of its referent.[1]

What can we know about God? This question takes us to the doctrine of revelation, which has little to do with the last book of the Bible. Theologically, revelation is how God chooses to be revealed. The ultimate revelation is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. But you know, God didn’t have to come. God could have stayed hidden. But God loves this world and goes great distances to connect to a fallen humanity. God calls Abraham and Moses. God sends Judges, anointed prophets and kings, and works through ordinary and broken people until finally coming to us as a Son. Jesus Christ reveals God in a way we can know and understand.  

God directs what is revealed and not revealed. There are times God may be silent, especially when we attempt to usurp God’s position. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and author, provides this explanation: 

Silence becomes God’s final defense against our idolatry. By limiting our speech, God gets some relief from our descriptive assaults. By hiding inside a veil of glory, God eludes our projects. God deflects our attempts at control by withdrawing into silence… When we run out of words, then and perhaps only then, can God be God.[2]

Barbara Brown Taylor and Amy Leach are on a similar page. When we expend a lot of words on God, we find ourselves out over our skis. With skiing, when you get ahead of yourself, just like when you think you know too much about God, you’ll liable to come tumbling down. We need to let God be God, have faith, and trust in God’s love for us. 

In this my second sermon on the Nicene Creed. We’ll explore the first article, on God the Father. 

Before reading the Scriptures: 
The Nicene Creed is divided into articles. There are at least two ways of doing this. One divides the creed up into 12 articles, where the first deals with God the Father, the second through the seventh deal with Jesus Christ the Son, and the remaining articles focus on the Holy Spirit and the work of the church.[3]  A simpler way divides the creed into three articles, which is what I plan to use as we look at the Creed. After all, I don’t have twelve weeks to devote to the Creed. This manner breaks the creed into the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit.

The first article for both divisions of the creed deal with God the Father. It’s short, just 21 words in the English translation which appears in our Book of Confessions. “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”

God is the creator. There are things about God we, as mortal creatures, are unable to know as we’ll see in our scripture this morning. I want us to look at two different texts, the first from the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1 and the second and main text from chapter 38 of Job. 

Let me say a bit about Job. He was a righteous man who suffers greatly after a behind-the-scenes contest between God and Satan. Early in the book, Job loses everything: his family, his flocks and herds. He’s reduced to a sick and improvised man. At this point some friends visit him. They come with the best of intentions but a severe lack of social awareness. They try to comfort Job while insists he did something bad for all his suffering. Much of the book consist of a dialogue between Job and his so-called friends. They do a lot of God-talk. At the end, God corrects them all when he speaks out of whirlwind. Let’s see what we might learn about God the creator and the God who dresses down Job from the whirlwind:

Read Genesis 1:1-5 and Job 38:1-7

The first article of the Nicene Creed introduces us to God the Creator. It draws on both passages of scripture. God is “Father Almighty,” a term well known in the ancient world. In the epic poem Aeneid, this term referred to Jupiter, the great God within the Roman pantheon of gods. But the pagan gods of Rome were not Almighty, nor were they the creator of all.[4] So, the Creed reminded those in the 4th Century that the God it speaks of is much more powerful than the gods they worshipped. 

Furthermore, this God has created everything. Older English versions say “all things visible and invisible,” which reminds us that God’s creation includes things we can’t see or understand. This doesn’t refer to things only seen through a microscope or telescope, but things in different realms. 

We’re not privy into the world of heavenly beings, or even demons, those beings who have fallen from grace.[5] All things remind us that everything has been created by God.[6]

This opening article of the Creed, while setting up our understanding of God in opposition to the ancient gods, doesn’t spend much time with God the Father. This is because there was no conflict. Jews and Christians, of all different stripes, believed in one God, the Father Almighty. The conflict came in the understanding of the Son and Spirit, which we’ll look at over the next few weeks. 

When the Almighty speaks to Job and his friends out of the whirlwind, it becomes immediately clear that neither Job (who is later vindicated by God), nor his so-called friends know what they’re talking about. This is why I like the essay I quoted a portion of earlier by Amy Leach. The more we talk about God, the less sense we make.  We will never fully comprehend God and when we encounter the Holy One, we should stand in silent awe. “Be still and know that I am God,” the Psalmist tells us.[7]

God response starts at creation, reminding Job he wasn’t present when God laid out the earth’s foundation. Although God tells Job to be ready to answer, Job finds himself speechless at God’s questions. And we would be, too.

One of the beautiful things about this opening speech is the joy of creation. In verse seven, we’re told the morning stars, and the all the heavenly beings sing joyfully. They accept their position in creation and remain quite content. Imagine the stars singing like birds sing on a spring morning. But we humans tend to focus too much on ourselves. Wanting to be like God, we find it easy to break the Commandments. We’re like Adam and Eve in the garden, delighting in the forbidden fruit. 

“God is Great, God is Good,” the prayer many of us said at the table as children goes. But a great God cannot be controlled. A God in which we can fully understand would be a limited God, which is not God. By definition, God is greater than anything we can manage. There must be a mystery which we accept by faith. The creed calls us to accept this mystery, as we worship God who has creates everything, and as we’ll see next week, loves the world enough to send his only begotten Son to save it. 

A former professor of mine, Donald McCullough, wrote a powerful book titled The Trivialization of God. McCullough points out how we, as a society, tend to cheapen God. We do this because we want to control God. One of my favorite quotes attributed to Mark Twain is that God created us in his image and we return the favor. When it comes to God, we think we know more than we do which leads us into idolatry. McCullough has this to say about backing away from the trivial gods which we surrounded ourselves:

The most important step that could be taken toward removing trivial gods from the altar of devotion and renewing faith in the one true God, the Holy One, would be for the church to rediscover the Bible, to open itself anew to its creative and redeeming Word.[8]

We need to be like Job, speechless before the Lord in a whirlwind. We acknowledge we don’t know everything about God, but we trust that God is good and will work out all things to his glory and our well-being.  Amen. 

[1] Amy Leach, Things that Are: Essays (Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed, 2013), 99-100. 

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent 

[3] Kevin DeYong, The Nicene Creed (Wheaton, IL: Crossways, 2025), 25. 

[4] Phillip Cary, The Nicene Creed: An Introduction (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2023), 25. 

[5] Isaiah 14:12, Revelation 12:7-9.

[6] Cary, 29-30.

[7] Psalm 46:10

[8] Donald McCullough, The Trivialization of God