A Lenten Reflection

 I believe in God,

the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and 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;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

The Apostles’ Creed is one of the oldest summaries of Christian faith, emerging from the early church’s baptismal practices in the first few centuries as a way to name the story of God’s work in creation, in Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit. It was not written as a test to sort insiders from outsiders, but as a shared language to bring clarity to what the community trusted, proclaimed, and sought to live. When we speak the Creed today, we receive this ancient witness not as a boundary marker, but as an act of kindness through clarity—a way of saying, together, the hope and the mystery that shapes our life, our worship, and our commitment to follow Christ in the world.

If we read the Creed as a poem, as I think we must, we can marvel at its beauty as it moves from height to depth and back again. We follow God through the confession, beginning with the lofty height of sovereignty over all creation in the first article. Then, in the second article, we follow God down into the depths—even into hell. That descent has troubled Christians throughout the church’s history; the line is unsettling, even scandalous. Yet that discomfort is part of its meaning. The Creed dares to proclaim that in Christ, God goes where God is not supposed to go—into abandonment, into death, into the furthest reaches of human lostness. There is no depth beyond God’s reach, no darkness God refuses to enter. The beauty of the Creed’s movement is this: the One who reigns over all creation is the same One who goes all the way down for us—and who rises, carrying even the depths back toward life.

Lent invites us to enter that same movement of the Creed—to descend with Christ into the depths of our own finitude, our frailty, our repentance, and our need for grace. It is a season of honesty about dust and limits, about the places where life feels heavy, hidden, or lost. Yet this descent is never an end in itself. As we walk the path downward with Jesus, our hearts are being prepared for joy. For the One who goes down is the One who is raised. And so, at Easter, we rise with Christ, share in his ascension, and live in the hope of our life hidden with him in God. This upward movement continues as we await the gift of the Holy Spirit, whom we celebrate at Pentecost—the Spirit who empowers us to live the resurrection life in the world, bearing witness to the grace that has carried us from death into life.

May we follow Jesus from height to depth and back again as we journey through Lent and then rise to celebrate resurrection on Easter Sunday.