Faith from Nicaea I: “Holding Fast in a Shaking World — Why the Creed Still Matters”

Sermon for Trinity 22, preached by the Vicar, Fr Christopher Woods
Readings: Malachi 4.1–2; 2 Thessalonians 3.7–12; Luke 21.5–19

When Jesus looked at the great stones of the Temple and said, “Not one stone will be left upon another,” it must have sounded like madness to those who were listening. That Temple was more than architecture; it was more than the centre of the Jewish faith; it was the axis of the world, the place where heaven stooped to touch earth. To imagine its ruin was to imagine life without a centre – chaos and disintegration.

Yet Jesus understood what religious people sometimes forget: that even the most imposing structures eventually tremble and crumble. Empires fall. Ideas falter. Certainties can crack. This leaves people of faith with terrible trauma and fear. St Luke was writing his gospel after the devastation of Jerusalem by the Roman armies around 70AD, and the way he frames his words suggests that he may have witnessed the devastation or knew people that had. What endures in our faith, Luke suggests, is not the stone of a temple, but the truth: the truth of who God is, and who we become when we stand ever more clearly in His light and love. Moreover, we are certain that the end will come, but it is not yet. And therefore, whilst we are to be alert, we are not to be afraid.

A little later in history, seventeen centuries ago, the Church found herself again in a serious season of shaking, this time not so much about the destruction of the Temple, but another great devastation: heresy. The year was 325. Christianity had only just stepped out from the shadow of persecution. A generation earlier, Christians had been torn apart in the amphitheatres; now they found themselves summoned by the Emperor Constantine to gather in a lakeside town called Nicaea in modern day Turkey called Iznik. Imagine it: bishops from all over the world, arriving limping, after many weeks travelling, some bearing the scars of torture — men who had suffered for Christ now sitting in a council chamber under imperial protection. It must have felt surreal, precarious, even perplexing.

And why? Well a man called Arius, a learned and charismatic priest from Libya, taught that Christ was exalted but not eternal, God’s first and greatest creature, but still a creature and not equal to God the Father. It sounded tidy, logical, even pious. Yet it chipped away at the very heart of salvation: if Christ is not truly God, then our union with God is an illusion. A bridge made of merely another human being cannot carry us into divine life and so his death was in vain.

So bishops and patriarchs from every corner of the Christian world - Latin West and Greek East, desert saints and city theologians - gathered to pray, argue, weep, and listen. They were not merely philosophers debating abstractions; they were pastors guarding their flock. They asserted that muddled thinking about Christ leads to muddled living.

And out of that council came the words we know so well:

“God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.”

These words were forged in the fire of controversy, hammered out by people whose faith had cost them dearly. The Creed therefore soon became the Church’s answer to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” It is the testimony of those who looked upon the risen Christ and recognised in Him the uncreated radiance of God.

When Malachi promised that “the sun of righteousness” would rise with healing in its wings, the Nicene fathers saw the fulfilment of that prophecy in the face of Jesus, not a reflected glow but the very light by which the world was made.

And in our Gospel today, Jesus speaks of upheavals, wars, betrayals and collapsing temples and He tells us not to be alarmed.

“By your steadfastness,” He says, “you will gain your souls.” The Creed is precisely that steadfastness put into words. It is a pillar of solid truth and light when the world around us becomes shaky, uncertain and doubtful.

And how the world does shake. Truth feels negotiable. Public life frays. As human beings when the going gets tough, we are often tempted (are we not?) to craft a faith in our own image, trimmed to taste, shaped by mood or moment. In such a climate, reciting the Creed is a quiet act of courage. We stand with Christians long gone and Christians yet to come, and we say: We believe. Not because we always feel it, but because the truth holds even when our feelings do not. And so, whilst we firmly believe as the Church that the Creed is the benchmark of doctrinal orthodoxy, it does not mean that we always must accept what it says at face value. Nor does it mean that we can’t argue with it, or ask questions of it, or discuss it with other Christians, or indeed non-Christians. Indeed, some of the concepts within the Creed are quite obscure for the new Christian and need deeper and more intensive exploration for the phrases to take on an interior depth in our faith.

The Creed keeps us from religious and intellectual arrogance; it steadies us against a drifting doubt. It keeps us labouring for justice, generous in compassion, rooted in worship, anchored in hope. In a world where truth feels slippery and identity fragile, the Nicene faith grounds us. It gives us a centre that we can week by week check back in with. The Creed is not a relic; it is a living confession, linking our worship at St Barnabas to the worship of Christians across continents and centuries. The Creed fosters unity: transcending all denominations and expressions of the Christian faith, Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Protestant.

When we say, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,” we are stepping into a stream of faith that has carried saints, martyrs, missionaries, and mystics. We are linking arms with Nicaea - with scarred bishops and desert hermits and luminous minds - all convinced that in Christ we meet the living God who heals, forgives, renews.

So, as we mark 1700 years since that remarkable council, let us treat the Creed not as a museum piece but as a heartbeat. A rhythm of trust. A lamp for unsteady feet. When institutions crumble and certainties crack, the Creed gathers us again around the God who loves us and holds us firmly in his grasp.

The stones of the Temple fell, but the living stones of faith rose — and we are among them.

So, my friends, let us hold fast in this shaking world, and say with quiet joy and steady conviction:

We believe… and because we believe, hope stands firm, and love endures.