5th October 2025 - Martin Mowat

Reflections on the Apostle's Creed – 5th October 2025 – Martin Mowat

Readings: - Psalm 19:1-10 & Ephesians 2:11-22

Harvest Festival is traditionally a time to appreciate God’s creation,
to thank him for his “manifold blessings”, and rightly so.  We don’t have to reflect very long or hard to realise how fortunate we are. 

However, appreciating God’s creation pre-supposes two things that most of us here this morning probably take for granted, but that the vast majority of the world doesn’t.

The first is that there is indeed a God, and the second that it was he who created all that we have and enjoy.  

A couple of months ago we had some visitors called David and Kathy Smith, who turned out to be the brother and sister-in-law of a neighbour of ours in Plaigne, and who, many years ago, had stayed in our house when it was a gite, but that was before our time. 

That Sunday I had mentioned the fact that young men in Britian are starting to go to church in their droves and so, via his sister, David very kindly gave me a book called “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God” by a well-known podcaster called Justin Brierly. ….. He has subtitled it “Why New Atheism grew old and secular thinkers are considering Christianity again”

It's quite heavy going but absolutely fascinating, and as the subtitle implies its main theme is the rapidly decreasing popularity of atheism, particularly by leading scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and other “thinkers” who have studied creation and the myriad attempts to explain it without God.

I’m not going to begin to get into all that it says and argues but two things stand out.

The first is that however unlikely what he calls the “God story” might seem, the likelihood of the universe happening accidentally is so vastly infinitesimal as to be totally impossible.

The second is that if it had happened accidentally, why? 

Whether we recognise it or not, whatever our faith or lack of, we ALL seek three things in life, identity, purpose and meaning.  ONLY the “God story” provides ANY of those three essentials. 

And that’s why I believe in God, the Father almighty, and why I believe that it’s he who is the creator of heaven and earth.

Another thing that the book addresses is some detail is the historical accuracy of the Bible.  He explains that the early chapters were penned thousands of years before we had the scientific knowledge that we have now, so that if all the scientific details had been included, no-one would have been able to understand a word.  Also, not one verse has been proved untrue, and that huge amounts of it are corroborated by other historical documents.

Particularly is this the case for what happened in the life of a young preacher called Jesus of Nazareth.  And that’s why I can very clearly say that I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  Do I believe in the virgin birth? Absolutely I do. Why not? If I believe God initiated and supervised the creation process, with all its trillions of alternative possibilities, I certainly believe that same God could, and did, by his Holy Spirit, impregnate Mary.

The same goes for the three days that Jesus spent in a tomb borrowed from a man called Joseph of Arimathea, before being seen alive and kicking by hundreds of people over a 7-week period.  Could such a thing really happen – of course – for the same reason. 

How?    Why?     GOD.  

Then what? He ascended into heaven, we’re told. 

Heaven?  What exactly is that, and where is it? Indeed, is it really there at all? 

To be perfectly honest this isn’t something I’ve ever given a lot of thought to, I’ve always sort of just taken it for granted.  But if you think about it, its critically important.  It’s where Jesus is, and it’s where we want to go to spend eternity with him. 

It’s where he is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty; and it’s from there that he will come to judge the living and the dead.

It’s where he will separate the saved from the lost, the latter going to eternal punishment, and the former to eternal life. 

And if you believe all that, as you most certainly should, because not believeing it is certainly harder than believing it, and far less reliable, the rest is relatively straight forward.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, God with, amongst, and strengthening his children

the holy catholic Church, catholic with a small ‘c’, otherwise called the “universal church”, that he gave us to enjoy mutual encouragement, and to be his hands and his feet in the business of spreading the gospel.

the communion of saints, fellowhip if like minded believers

the forgiveness of sins, the reason Jesus came, the positive side of the judgement we just talked about

the resurrection of the body, again, what we just talked about – heaven, life everlasting in a state of total bliss.  

No more pain, no more suffering, no more bereavement, no more politics, no more hatred, no more aggression, …..

This isn’t just a neat ending.  It isn’t just the icing on the cake. Heaven is what life is ALL about.