Everything below this paragraph comes from over at Too Wonderful For Me. HT to Tim at Taliesan. He's being added to my Blog List.
Ever since the early saints came up with the Apostle’s and Nicene creeds, various parties in the church have attempted to summarize biblical truth for various reasons. The longer history went on, the longer the creeds got. Here’s one of my own, done with no forethought whatsoever. It’s very long, because I’m so late in history.
Mairnéalach’s Creed
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are friends. They’re also one, which breaks several rules, but they do that sort of thing a lot.
One of their favorite things to do is make stuff. God thought up the universe and everything in it, including people. He let Jesus do all the building because Jesus enjoys building. This makes sense, because my little boy loves building and Jesus is God’s little boy. I get a kick out of watching my little boy build, so I imagine God gets a kick out of watching Jesus build.
It’s dumb to talk about God too much without mentioning Jesus, because it’s like waxing eloquent about your wife’s brain without mentioning the other bits you like about her. Besides, since they’re one, you can get to know God by getting to know Jesus, which is a handy arrangement. There’s no such thing as “pure God” without Jesus, but if there was, he’d be too boring to want to know anyway.
Jesus loves the universe and the people he made. A few of the cool things he made are octopuses, cattle, pill bugs, grapes, cypress trees, and red giants. Some of the cool people he made are grandmas, five year olds, wives, and that crocodile guy who sadly died.
Jesus enjoys making stuff so much that he built that into us, too. Some of the stuff we like making are calamari, steaks, chardonnay, two by fours, and atom smashers. The coolest things to make are the things we make in cahoots with other people, like babies with your wife, cartoons, and laughs which come from tickling five year olds.
Jesus also made some people that we don’t understand very well. They’re called angels. Just like us, he made them to be his friends, but some of them mistrusted Jesus, and they became demons. They fight Jesus. The worst one is named Satan.
The first man Jesus made like himself was Adam. Since Adam is so much like Jesus, he needed a friend, just like Jesus needs God and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Jesus made Eve for him. Woo-hoo! Jesus made a safe haven for them, away from the war.
Adam and Eve mistrusted Jesus one day. When they did that, they died. Well, their spirits died immediately, but their bodies lingered for quite a while. Even though Satan was largely responsible for this, the punishment was fair. Every man since Adam has shared in this sadness. Everybody knows they deserve it.
Mistrusting Jesus started a chain reaction in man’s history which resulted in a huge amount of misery. We’re basically right in the middle of the war now. This shows up in such things as dictators, bombs, AIDS, and divorce.
Even though Adam’s betrayal brought sadness, Jesus let him keep an incredible amount of happiness. Things like jobs, friends, dancing, whisky, sailboats, stories, and symphonies are a few examples of this. It wasn’t exactly fair of Jesus to do this for Adam, but Jesus really isn’t very fair.
Since the whole point of man was for him to trust God, many men started saying that God had failed at his task. This is a classic example of what psychologists call “projection”. It’s also what writers call “grim irony”. Much of history is a record of these fools being hoist on their own petard. Jesus even said that he hated such men, and that if they didn’t change, he would let them rot forever. Those people say it’s not very fair of Jesus to say such things (or that he never really said them, which is just another variation of saying they’re not fair), but Jesus really isn’t very fair.
Jesus started making new people who trusted him. He started with a man named Abraham. Abraham was grandpa to millions of people who trusted Jesus. This process required several events which were, quite frankly, impossible. Yet, they happened anyway. Jesus, who likes to teach using comedy, eventually named this mob of people “Israel”, which means “people who fight with me”.
Jesus’s favorite people were always the ones who trusted him the most. Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, and Joseph are some great examples. Moses and Joshua are others. David was a particularly great one. Jesus really, really loved David. David was an amazing man, and a jerk, and he wrote incredible poems.
All throughout this process, Jesus kept smuggling in people from outside of Israel, and making them honorary Israelites. This wasn’t really a fair thing for Jesus to do, but Jesus isn’t really fair.
Jesus kept telling his people that he would save them. One of Jesus’s usual methods for saving them was by letting them go through terrible trials, usually to teach them not to be jerks.
As things were coming to the biggest crisis yet for the Israelites, Jesus did something very, very good. He came and lived with them in person. This involved him being a baby. That must have really tickled him to no end. He made a lot of best friends and forgave sins. He also got to make two by fours and wine by hand instead of trees and grapes by speaking, which also must have tickled him to no end.
He was also holy. So holy, in fact, that he made the holiest people in Israel look like complete jerks, which is what they were. They hated that, so they killed him. His best friends weren’t much help when this happened. The jerks enjoyed the show, but the friends were just paralyzed and in complete despair. Perhaps they were thinking about what big jerks they were themselves.
While he was dead, Jesus went to hell and did something nobody understands. It was a secret commando mission. The net result was something like planting a time bomb there.
Jesus came alive again. By doing so, he showed his friends that his own father, God, had personally approved his execution. This was not very fair for God to do, but God isn’t really fair.
The jerks immediately did everything they could to get people to ignore this.
Jesus left from our earth, but before he left, he sent the Holy Spirit to keep us company and empower us to be brave and laugh. Nobody really understands the Holy Spirit much, except for the fact that he allows people to be brave and laugh, and he seems to be heavily involved in war, quantum mechanics, and baby making, among other things.
He told us he’d be back, and gave us a list of things to do. He told us that if someone really wants to leave jerkdom behind, and if they really trust he saved them by dying on the cross, then they’re his people. Period. He gave us two gifts to help display what he was doing, one of which is his baptism, and the other of which is his thanksgiving supper.
Since that day, his people have been fighting among themselves about who “has” better baptisms and thanksgiving suppers. We completely forgot that those things belong to him, not to us. Since we love fighting with him so much, it only makes sense we would love fighting with each other so much. His people, Israel, are pretty much the best empirical proof that the cross is necessary. It’s not very fair for Jesus to endure this kind of thing, but Jesus isn’t very fair.
Footnotes
One of the intriguing things about Jesus is that he has testicles. Some people don’t like this, but it’s a fact. He was a man, not a woman. However, he didn’t mistreat women, like jerks do. He made best friends with them, treated them grandly, and even died for them. So, anyone else who has testicles must do the same, if they want to be a real man like Jesus.
Jesus was a jerk himself sometimes. However, he was a jerk because he loved people and wanted to break their hearts. Most men are just jerks, period.
Did I mention that Jesus invented making babies?
The most awesome thing about creeds is that they help people praise Jesus. Other than that, if you have one printed on paper they’re good for kindling, or wiping your butt.
Man’s biggest problem is that he thinks he invented fair. But he didn’t, God did. For example, God hates judges who condemn innocent people. Yet, God condemned Jesus. That isn’t fair, but we have no evidence to suggest that God hates himself; quite the contrary, actually. Therefore, sometimes the best way man can honor God is just to shut up and let God decide how things are.
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