Who is Jesus?

Growing prayerfully in faith and fellowship by sharing ideas: 
who is Jesus?

A Lent Course
Celebrating Nicaea: seeing afresh the faith which holds us together
Written by Revd Dr Donald McFadyen, Diocese in Europe

We chant the Nicene Creed regularly in church. However, have you ever wondered exactly what it means?

A small group of All Saints met with Alison, our curate, in the beautiful setting of the Centre Jean XXIII, to learn about the Nicene Creed. Alison is taking a dynamic approach and the sessions will be based on the wishes and interests of participants around the theme.

In our first session, we deepened our understanding of the context in which the Nicene Creed was developed, and shared our experiences of how we came to know the Nicene Creed growing up. 

We were taken to church as children and developed our understanding of faith, including the Nicene Creed, through idiosyncratic family preferences, circumstances and structures. For example, Alison and Tania had naval backgrounds and had moved around. Ann had one parent from a Baptist tradition and one from a High Church Anglican tradition.

The question at the heart of the Nicene Creed is: Who is Jesus?

Watch this cartoon to learn more about the Council of Nicaea: Click here: The Council of Nicaea in 5 Minutes

We analysed the Nicene Creed and compared it with the earlier version from the Council of Nicaea defining terms where necessary, such as catholic, meaning universal, and apostolic meaning, passed down directly from Jesus through the apostles, who subsequently ordained new apostles, and so on.  Click here to see the Creed from First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Nicene Creed from First Council of Constantinople (381)

The Nicene Creed, in both its earlier and later forms, was written to unite the church. The first Christian Emperor, Constantine, wanted to unite the church through the Creed. The Trinity was the subject of much debate in those days, indeed later on there were even riots and fighting in market paces over these ideas. The whole question centred on: who is Jesus? Some schools of thought didn't see him as fully part of God.

The mention of Pontius Pilate in the Nicene Creed from the First Council of Constantinople gives it legal weight and historical accuracy, having also been written only a few hundred years after the crucifixion of Jesus. In the Bible Pontius Pilate famously, and literally, washed his hands of the decision to execute Jesus, giving responsibility to the crowd. However, he could have stopped Jesus' execution and considered him innocent. How often are we, as individuals or as a society, guilty of ignoring atrocities or being impervious to the plight of the suffering and metaphorically washing our hands of the situation?

In the radio programme 'In Our Time: The Nicene Creed' faith at the time of the Nicene Creed was described as being like a supermarket in which you could pick and choose whatever you fancied.

Some had a dualist faith which contained the idea that there were two opposing creator Gods, one good and one evil, who were in conflict. The Nicene Creed was written in part to clarify that this view was not compatible with Christian faith, and was successful in establishing an understanding that all things were made by God. 

Click here for - In Our Time: The Nicene Creed, Melvyn Bragg

Michelangelo - the Creation of Adam


Question: What is your relationship with the Nicene Creed?

  • Comfortingly familiar
  • Inclusive - it embraces all trinity based branches of belief
  • Bafflement
  • Mission Statement
  • Universal statement of belief







 

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