Athanasius Creed Skrip
February 15, 2010
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
5 lb 11 ounces, 18 1/2 inches
February 15, 2010
2 Corinthians 10:3-5
5 lb 11 ounces, 18 1/2 inches
When they first told us we were having a baby, we couldn't have explained the disbelief, joy, peace, and fears that surfaced all at once. We got to see him when he was just four weeks old, a little flashing grain of rice inside a dime-sized bubble, heart already beating 117 times a minute. Five weeks later, we were given another look into his secret world, where he had grown to two inches with all the parts of his body already formed. “He looks perfect,” we were told. In another five weeks, his little kicks could be felt like a gently popping bubble. Every day, he made his presence known with more strength and energy. At twenty-one weeks, we found out he was a boy, and we could finally call him by the name we always suspected was his: Athan. He was sucking the thumb of one hand and exploring his surroundings with the other. “ Absolutely perfect.” We laughed and played with his feet rolling around. He moved to the sound of music and his dad's voice. It was a time full of wonders: What does he look like? How big is he? Worries came also: Do you think he is okay? Will he live? Prayers from the beginning were that God would teach us to trust Him with this life that we could not yet see. Father, we cannot know, but you know. He is yours. You already know the first and the last day of his life.
Eight months of pregnancy allowed a lot of time for thinking. We had so many hopes for the future with our son, and with those hopes came fears of not knowing whether they would be fulfilled. Like many parents, our greatest hope was that he would know his Savior. We prayed God would raise him up to know and defend the truth of the gospel with courage, humility, and dependence on his Father; we prayed the Lord would keep him all the days of his life. As we searched for a name that would express this, Athan was one we could not put aside. The meaning of Athanasius is eternal life. Creed is a principle believed or professed. In history, Athanasius was a church father from the 4th century. He was known for a very long battle against Arian heresy of the time, defending that Jesus was God, ultimately leading to the formation of the Nicaean Creed. From John Piper's biography sermon:
In the whole of our minute knowledge of his life there is a total lack of self-interest. The glory of God and the welfare of the Church absorbed him fully at all times. The Emperors recognized him as a political force of the first order, but on no occasion does he yield to the temptation of using the arm of flesh. Almost unconscious of his own power, his humility is the more real for never being conspicuously paraded. Courage, self-sacrifice, steadiness of purpose, versatility and resourcefulness, width of ready sympathy, were all harmonized by deep reverence and the discipline of a single-minded lover of Christ.
This single-minded love for Jesus Christ expressed itself in a lifelong battle to explain and defend Christ's deity and to worship Christ as Lord and God. There were times when it seemed the whole world had abandoned orthodoxy. That is why the phrase “Athanasius contra Mundum” (against the world) arose. He stood steadfast against overwhelming defection from orthodoxy, and only at the end of his life could he see the dawn of triumph. *
Later we chose for him the verses 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ...
When we thought about the perils in the life of Athanasius, and the verses in 2 Corinthians, we realized this was a difficult calling to commit a son to. What if it requires his life? Again we prayed, Lord, he is yours. No other calling holds any worth. We thought this would take years of training and prayer on our part for him to be able to know and defend the Truth. In the end, we never had to do anything but let him go for God to do this work.
Jesus set his face as flint toward Jerusalem; He did not swerve from the road that brought so much sorrow and suffering in the shadow of the cross. But from the shadow emerged in full splendor the glory of the Father and the greatest joy ever known. We long to hear our little boy cry, but how sweet to know his first breath was one of eternal life. We want to see his eyes open to us, but what a gift that from the darkness of the womb, his first sight was the unspeakable glory of God—mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty! Psalm 93. We know our Savior from the shadow, but our son knows Him in perfect joy and glory. Our greatest hope for Athan has already been fulfilled. May we walk faithfully as Christ did with the blessed assurance that every shadow will disappear. One day we will know our Savior and our son from the light.
* Athanasius' biography can be downloaded at: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Biographies/1532_Contending_for_Our_All/
If I wonder why something trying is allowed,
and press for prayer that it be removed;
if I cannot be trusted with any disappointment,
and cannot go on in peace under any mystery,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I ask to be delivered from trial
rather than from deliverance out of it,
to the praise of His glory;
if I forget that the way of the cross
leads to the cross
and not to a bank of flowers;
if I regulate my life on these lines,
or even unconsciously my thinking,
so that I am surprised when the way is rough
and think it strange, though the word is,
“Think it not strange,” “Count it all joy,”
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If there be any reserve in my giving to
Him who so loved that He gave His Dearest for me;
if there be a secret “but” in my prayer,
“Anything but that, Lord,”
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I covet any place on earth
but the dust at the foot of the cross,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
That which I know not, teach Thou me,
O Lord, my God.
- Amy Carmichael, from “If”
and press for prayer that it be removed;
if I cannot be trusted with any disappointment,
and cannot go on in peace under any mystery,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I ask to be delivered from trial
rather than from deliverance out of it,
to the praise of His glory;
if I forget that the way of the cross
leads to the cross
and not to a bank of flowers;
if I regulate my life on these lines,
or even unconsciously my thinking,
so that I am surprised when the way is rough
and think it strange, though the word is,
“Think it not strange,” “Count it all joy,”
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If there be any reserve in my giving to
Him who so loved that He gave His Dearest for me;
if there be a secret “but” in my prayer,
“Anything but that, Lord,”
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I covet any place on earth
but the dust at the foot of the cross,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
That which I know not, teach Thou me,
O Lord, my God.
- Amy Carmichael, from “If”
We want to express our most heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported us in so many ways during this time. In the midst of heartbreak you have sustained us through your prayers and given us cause to experience joy, laughter, peace, and thankfulness. If anyone wants to know the hope that we have been given through Jesus Christ, please talk to us.
- Zack and Leanne
