Kallen saarnoja loppuvuodelta 2001

Mt. 5
1. Jesus saw the crowds and went up a hill, where he sat down. His disciples gathered around him, 2. and he began to teach them: 3. 'Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! 4. 'Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them! 5. 'Happy are those who are humble; they will receive what God has promised! 6. 'Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully! 7. 'Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them! 8. 'Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God! 9. 'Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children! 10. 'Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! 11. 'Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers. 12. Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived before you were persecuted.

There was for centuries ago an Englishman, Henry. He was invited to follow a landman of his, Nicolas, first to Rome and then to the far north. They travelled to Norway and to Sweden, where Henry was appointed to bishop in Uppsala. Nicolas went back to Rome and was later elected to pope. After a couple of years, Henry followed the local king Eric into the wild eastern country on the opposite side of the sea. Again his companion went back, with his troops, and Henry stayed in the new country. He continued to organize the church and to preach. Half a year after his arrival he was on his way back from Kokemäki in the north to his residence in Nousiainen. On that trip he was killed. After his death and after some miracles in his name, he became Saint Henry, the patron of Finland and, since 1300, the patron of this cathedral.

There was some decades ago in the Central American El Salvador a priest from a good family, Oscar. He was appointed to archbishop in San Salvador. The powerful, the families who had ruled since 1820s’ thought that they would again have archbishop who would explain to the common people how it was a good order from God, that they possessed the farming lands. But Oscar come through some friends to another conclusion: the gospel is not just  a spiritual message, but it has to be realized in the lives of the people. He started to work with theologians of the theology of liberation, he preached justice and freedom of people, he preached against oppression. So he became very uncomfortable in the eyes of the powerful. Once he was again celebrating the holy communion in the chapel of a hospital. He was shoot in the middle of that very celebration. Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero has not been canonized officially, but he is regarded as “San Romero de Americas”, as the Saint Romero of the Americas.

In the summer and in the autumn 1989 thousands of women and men gathered in the churches in Eastern Germany. Those gathered in the Nicolas-Church in Leipzig on Monday evenings for a prayer for peace went out after the prayer. They took candles with them and walked together silently through the city. After weeks and months of prayers and silent walks the one ideology power was over, the time of democracy started.

We celebrate today the All Saint’s Day. I have mentioned some saints. But why are they called saints? For St. Henry reasons seem obvious: he was a martyr, he brought the organized Christianity to this country, he followed God’s call. Oscar Romero was martyr, too. He brought the Gospel to the reality of the common people. He followed God’s call, He acted because he knew that he was set free by Christ.

But it is not just martyrdom that makes a saint. On the St. James’ Way from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela you meet Domingo who built a bridge over the river Oja in Calzada for the pilgrims, and Juan who built a refugee, a hostel for pilgrims in Ortega. They were canonized for their services for the pilgrims.

Are, then, only those people saints who have died as martyrs or made special services? Remember my third example in the beginning: the walking people in the streets of Leipzig. I could have named some other group of ordinary people, too. The Salvadorian peasants of Las Minas in Chalatenango on the Hondurasian boarder who have come from refugee camps to cultivate the land, their land. The native families Namibia who sent their children to church schools in the years of South African apartheid regime and whose daughters and sons became the leaders of the independent Namibia, families who prayed and went to church and got from their Christian faith strength to live through those years of oppression.

Who are saints, then? Those who are happy, who are blest, who are makarioi — as the word is in the Greek New Testament. Who are they? We heard the Gospel, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. The first characteristics our Lord mentions is: Those who know their need of God. As in the Ten Commandments and as in the Lord’s Prayer, I would like to seek the general meaning of this Gospel in the beginning sentence, too. Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor. How blest are those who know their need of God.

We can count ourselves among those who know their need of God, can’t we?  Surely we can, unless we think that we can reach the eternal salvation with our own capabilities, with our own skills and wisdom and strength. But whoever thinks to have the keys of the eternal salvation, would not come to a service, to the table of the Lord, would not come to holy communion to be strengthened in the faith, would not want to receive the mercy and the gifts of the triune God in the holy baptism.

We are here, in a Christian service. We see here only a small group of Christians, but we are citizens with God’s people, members of God’s household. We belong to God’s family which has members from all nations, from all languages, both living and those who have died in the faith in God. We are those who know our need of God, our need of faith.  We are those, whose the kingdom of Heaven is, not because of our faith or our wisdom or our power, but because of God’s mercy and love in Jesus Christ.

As members of God’s family we are allowed to be weak. We may have sorrows but we can find consolation. With a gentle spirit we may form this life better for others, as Archbishop Romero did. When we hunger and thirst to see right prevail we shall find satisfaction in working for justice already in this world. So we are also peacemakers, for justice is a, no: the necessary condition for peace. If we always see for our own rights we cannot act as peacemakers: so we have to show mercy as our heavenly Father has shown his mercy upon us. And when we let our need of God, our faith become reality we might suffer problems and even persecution. But also then we are children of God.

All Saint’s Day is our day 

Matthew 25
31. 'When the Son of Man comes as King and all the angels with him, he will sit on his royal throne, 32. and the people of all the nations will be gathered before him. Then he will divide them into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33. He will put the righteous people at his right and the others at his left. 34. Then the King will say to the people on his right, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world. 35. I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, 36. naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.' 37. The righteous will then answer him, 'When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? 38. When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? 39. When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?' 40. The King will reply, 'I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!' 41. 'Then he will say to those on his left, 'Away from me, you that are under God's curse! Away to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels! 42. I was hungry but you would not feed me, thirsty but you would not give me a drink; 43. I was a stranger but you would not welcome me in your homes, naked but you would not clothe me; I was sick and in prison but you would not take care of me.' 44. Then they will answer him, 'When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we would not help you?' 45. The King will reply, 'I tell you, whenever you refused to help one of these least important ones, you refused to help me.' 46. These, then, will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life.'

For twelve years ago I happened to be in Berlin in early November. The year was 1989. It was the weekend of the opening of the Wall. For millions of people it was the moment of the fulfilment of what they had been longing for —  for decades, their whole lives. For that city, for huge crowds it was the weekend of a sudden celebration, of a unexpected fête.

Some people, though, celebrated with mixed feelings. The Federal Republic of Germany had in the fundamental law a paragraph on the unity of Germany. For almost forty years it was spoken out in official speeches. And suddenly it  the possibility of the unity became real. Suddenly it became clear that noone was prepared for the unity.

In this time of the year the memories from Germany in the period of Wiedervereinigung, re-uniting are close to me, year after year. In my mind, I connect those memories with the messages of the last sundays of the church year, with the message of today’s and last Sunday’s gospel, with the messages  of the Creed: “He will come to judge the living and the dead.” or even more precisely of the Nicene Creed: “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”

When the Day comes, am I prepared? Or have I just, all my life long, Sunday after Sunday, repeated words without living them?  Have we just repeated the words?

In the gospel Jesus tells how it will once be when he returns in his glory. He tells according which criterium he will separate his true followers from other people: “Anything you did for one of my brothers, however humble, you did for me.” That criterium should not be a surprise — it is somehow only a conclusion of the most important commandment: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind'; and 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself.'

So, once before the throne of the Son of Man, we have no excuses. If we have obeyed his commandment to love God and to love our neighbours, there should be no problems for us. But we know, we experience how difficult it is to obey that commandment. When we, with open eyes and open mind, look at our deeds and thoughts, we see and feel how much there is lacking from true love towards God and our neighbours. If we should reach the Kingdom of Christ with our deeds, noone would enter it.

How can we then prepare ourselves for the moment when Christ comes as King in his glory? In a sense, that is a totally wrong question. We should rather ask: How can Christ be the King for me today? How can he rule my life? How can he reign in my heart? How can Christ live in me and I in Christ?  When we find the answer for these questions, we are already in the Kingdom of Christ.

What we need is faith in God, the Father, Christ and Holy Spirit. We need a living faith which is a gift of God and a action of Holy Spirit in us. It makes us to realize the most important commandment: Love God and love your neighbour. It makes us to live in piety and in charity. Then we do not have to  worry whether we would be ready for the judgement before the throne of the Son of Man.

Also today we can with all our hearts look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come, even for the judgement of the living and the dead, if Christ is the King of our hearts. But let us not forget that he is the King whom we can meet in the people we think to be the least important, as we read in the gospel: The King will reply, 'I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!'

When we have Christ as the King already in this life and when we try to meet him in our neighbours as often as possible, we are well prepared for the Day in which the Wall between this world and the world to come falls and we shall see our King in his glory.

Mark 11:1–10
As they approached Jerusalem, near the towns of Bethphage and Bethany, they came to the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of his disciples on ahead with these instructions: 'Go to the village there ahead of you. As soon as you get there, you will find a colt tied up that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. And if someone asks you why you are doing that, say that the Master needs it and will send it back at once.'  So they went and found a colt out in the street, tied to the door of a house. As they were untying it,  some of the bystanders asked them, 'What are you doing, untying that colt?'  They answered just as Jesus had told them, and the crowd let them go. They brought the colt to Jesus, threw their cloaks over the animal, and Jesus got on.  Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches in the field and spread them on the road. The people who were in front and those who followed behind began to shout, 'Praise God! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! God bless the coming kingdom of King David, our father! Praise be to God!'

The nation had lost its real independence for centuries ago, and the last decades it been occupied by the most powerful state of its time. The people longed for a strong leader, for a liberator, who would wipe out the occupiers and give the nation its independence back. The liberator would be a king like the ancient heros — like David or Salomon or like the judges before them. Or like the Maccabees, who managed to struggle against a super state.

Every now and then there appeared leaders who tried to fight against the occupiers but the foreign force was too strong, too effective. It caught them and, usually let them die by sword or on cross.

Now the inhabitants of the capital, of the holy city have learned of a man who wanders over the country telling about the kingdom of God and healing people. Unlike many before him he has not used violence against anyone, not even against the occupiers. On the contrary, the rumours say that he had healed a servant of an officer of the occupation army! But there is something in him. He acts as he had the power, not the power of kings of this world, but another power. Now they have heard that he is coming into the holy city for the most important yearly religious and national festival commemorating the liberation from the slavery for more than 14 centuries ago.

Let’s go and welcome him! He is approaching, he has already passed the near by villages! Let’s take leaves and let’s spread our cloaks before him, as Jehu’s fellow officers once did to show that they accepted Jehu as the king. Let’s welcome him as our king!

And so they did. But it did not take a long time before they noticed, that he was not, he did not want to be a king they wanted to have. He was not at all interested in fighting against the occupiers, but he talked against their traditions and their leaders. Very soon, in just a few days they were ready to give him into the hands of the occupiers for crucifixion.

We are today starting the Advent time, the time to prepare ourselves for Christmas. The time to prepare ourselves for the coming of our Lord and Master. For the coming of the same one who once was welcomed to the holy city of Jerusalem like a king.

Two thousand years have passed since those days, but still today we are longing for the Liberator. But for us he is not a national hero nor a war lord.  As sons and daughters of Adam we belong to the fallen mankind. In the birth we have inherited the basic sin to live separated from God. We are occupied  by sin, unless Christ liberates us.

And he has liberated us, once for ever. His followers do not any more under the dominion of sin but they belong, we belong to God’s people. When we now, as member of his family, prepare ourselves for the arrival of Christ, we want to welcome him into our hearts. For only when he has come in to our hearts and when he is present in us, only then his coming into the world in Betlehem two millenniums ago and his entering to Jerusalem to die for the sins of all people, only then they become meaningful for us.

So, let’s open our hearts for Christ! We need him everyday, but let’s give a little bit more time and effort for our spiritual preparations in these weeks of Advent. The Christmas comes, anyway, but the really Christmas comes, when our hearts and minds are open for God and he can be born in us. In you and in me.

Luke 12
35. 'Be ready for whatever comes, dressed for action and with your lamps lit, 36. like servants who are waiting for their master to come back from a wedding feast. When he comes and knocks, they will open the door for him at once. 37. How happy are those servants whose master finds them awake and ready when he returns! I tell you, he will take off his coat, have them sit down, and will wait on them. 38. How happy they are if he finds them ready, even if he should come at midnight or even later! 39. And you can be sure that if the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, he would not let the thief break into his house. 40. And you, too, must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.'

The Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.

When the Son of Man comes, the whole cosmos will have its end in the form it has now. We do not know when the hour of his coming will be. But we do know that it will once be, the Son of Man will once come as he promised. And then the whole creation will be transformed.

Every person  is a microcosmos who will once come to the end, too. And the hour of the end, the hour of one’s death is unknown, until it will be there.

We experienced that yesterday. We as a congregation, we who had gathered in the Henrik’s Church for Christmas Carols Service. One of the important persons for the service was our sister Ingrid. She had done a lot for this congregation. In the service she read the gospel of the annunciation of our Lord. After that she heard the gospels of the birth of Lord. When it was time to leave the church it was her hour. She collapsed, and just before the bells announcing the beginning of this Day of Lord she was dead. As we came to the Christmas Carols no one was expecting that we would end our gathering in Henrik’s Church with a memorial prayer for Ingrid.

The Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him. This sentence is preceded by the commandment: “And you, too, must be ready”. Although I had discussed with Ingrid just before the carols on some matters concerning today and this service I felt afterwards that she was ready.

To be ready for one’s hour does not mean passive waiting. Neither does it mean focussing one’s life to its end. It means rather a life in faith. A life under the Word of God. A life in confidence in God, in Father who has created us and who gives us everything we need for the life, in Son who for our sake became one of us, who died for our sins and who opened the life everlasting through his resurrection, and in Holy Spirit who makes the work of Father and Son to be reality for us.

The advice of the gospel “And you, too, must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.'” have their response in today’s epistle: “My righteous one will live by faith. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”

There is no other way to the salvation than Jesus Christ, and he is present in the faith. And when he is present, he has already come. Advent, adventus Domini is fulfilled when Christus adest when Christ is present. And he is present in faith. In ipsa fide Christus adest, Christ is present in the very faith, is a summary of the heritage of the Reformation.

And when Christus adest, Christ is present in us, we are ready for every aspect of adventus Domini, of the coming of Lord. He is then born in our hearts. He is then the real King of our lives whom we want to follow and whose love we want to spread out in this world.

And when Christ is present in us, it is not so important for us when the hour of the Son of Man will be, neither in the perspective of the cosmos nor in the perspective of the microcosmos.

The whole cosmos might have to wait for the hour another two millenniums or even more. But as far as the microcosmos is concerned we know that the hour will come when we leave this life and this world.

The first Christians expected that Lord would come back very soon. For them it was a matter of some weeks or months. Then they enlarged their horizon into some years, and still in the time when the Letter to Hebrews was written, some 30 to 50 years after the ascension of Lord, the expectation was that the hour of the Son of Man is very soon. It is that kind of perspective of expectation we live in when we consider the microcosmos, that is: ourselves

Until the hour is there we are invited to live by faith and to do the will of God. When we live by faith, it is Christ himself who lives in us and in whom we live.  It is Christ himself who does the will of God in us and through us. It is Christ himself who has earned the reward for us. It is Christ who has saved us into the life everlasting. It is Christ who has come into us. The advent is fulfilled in the faith in Him.

Let us pray.

O God, who make us glad with the yearly reminder of the birth of your only Son, Jesus Christ, grant us that we joyfully receive him as our Saviour, so we may with sure confidence meet him when He shall come to be our judge. Amen.

Matthew 1
18 .This was how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. 19. Joseph was a man who always did what was right, but he did not want to disgrace  Mary publicly; so he made plans to break the engagement privately. 20. While he was thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife. For it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. 21. She will have a son, and you will name him Jesus — because he will save his people from their sins.' 22. Now all this happened in order to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet, 23. 'A virgin will become pregnant and have a son, and he will be called Immanuel' (which means, 'God is with us'). 24. So when Joseph woke up, he married Mary, as the angel of the Lord had told him to.

Tomorrow we can listen to the announcement of the Christmas peace. Day after tomorrow we celebrate the birth of our Saviour. The most familiar story on his birth is the one according Luke, where the young virgin Mary plays an important role.

But today, on the last Sunday before Christmas we heard another story, the one according Matthew; another story with another person in the main role.

We meet Joseph. The text tells that he was a righteous man. The tradition tells that he was a carpenter, a working man. One of his ancestors was the great king David, but it had been thousand years before.

As Joseph was a religious man he knew well the specialities connected with the reign of David. David’s ancestors did not belong to the powerful of their society. So he did not became king, the second king of Israel, by his own power nor by power of his family. He became king because God elected him. Once God chose the youngest son of an ordinary family and made him the greatest king ever ruling his people. Some four centuries part of the chosen people were ruled by his descendants. And when the people had lost its independence totally, when even the holy Temple had been destroyed, the prophecies had promised that a new king would rise from his house.

Joseph knew that the promised new king had not rose. Centuries had passed. The people had returned from the exile, the Temple had been rebuild, but the country was under a foreign rule.

When would a new David come and rule Israel? When would a new Moses come and set the people free? When would a new Eliah come and witness that Lord cares for his people? These might have been questions Joseph had in his mind.

He was then surprised as he got a message from Lord. He should not leave his bride whom he had thought to have been unfaithful to him. No, it was Lord himself who had chosen Mary to give birth to his son. It was Lord who had chosen him, Joseph, to be for his son before the eyes of other people.

There was another message, too, hidden in the name of the son to be born. He should be called Jesus. The name means: The Lord saves. This Jesus will save his people from their sins, was the direct message to Joseph.  But the name Jesus gives a new perspective for the hope, it broadens the waiting. Joseph might have noticed it. He was not any more waiting just for an Eliah, who shows that Lord cares. He was not any more waiting just for a Moses who sets the people free. He was not any more waiting just for a David who rules the people. He was waiting for a Joshua, too. He was waiting for one who would lead his people to the fulfilment of the promises. For it was once Joshua who led the people to the promised Land.

Whom are we waiting for? In the gospel there is one name more for him: Immanuel, God with us.

But it is not so that we would only wait for God to come to us. No. We know that it happened already. God is with us.

But sometimes it is hard to believe that God is with us. In the past months we have once again seen and heard how terrifying this world can be. How much hate there is in this world, among us, men and women created by God.

But how would this world be if he would not be here, among us. During the most terrifying moments of the past moths we have also seen how men and women have helped each others, how they have tried to relieve pain and sorrow. Many have helped and relieved because they have know, they believe, they are sure that God once entered this world, that God once came into his own creation.

And when God came here he came to be Moses, David, Eliah and Joshua in one. He who came set us free from every slavery we live in, he rules our life, he assures us that Lord cares for us, he leads us into the fulfilment of prophesies and promises. He shows us that God saves us. He is not only Son of David, but he is Son of God. He is God with us.

He is. But we wait for him. He has invited us into his Kingdom and we invite him into our hearts, into our lives. We wait for him to be born and to live in us, not only in Christmas, but every day. We wait for Jesus who is Moses, David, Eliah and Joshua in one for us. We wait for Jesus to be Immanuel, God with us and in us.

1. In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2. From the very beginning the Word was with God. 3. Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him. 4. The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to people. 5. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out. 6. God sent his messenger, a man named John, 7. who came to tell people about the light, so that all should hear the message and believe. 8. He himself was not the light; he came to tell about the light. 9. This was the real light — the light that comes into the world and shines on all people. 10. The Word was in the world, and though God made the world through him, yet the world did not recognize him. 11. He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him. 12. Some, however, did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God's children. 13. They did not become God's children by natural means, that is, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was their Father. 14. The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father's only Son

Today we remember the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The gospels of Luke and Matthew tell how it happened. In them we read how the prophesy was fulfilled: a virgin became pregnant and had a son. There are  shepherds and magi, there are angels and a child in a manger. That was how it happened.

The beginning of John’s gospel tells what happened on the first Christmas. And as we heard, the it actually only culminates with the Christmas. As the Word who became flesh was ful of grace and truth, so is this gospel full of grace.

This Christmas’ gospel starts already before the creation. It starts with the eternal Word. He acted with the Father already in the creation. Nothing was made without him. He was God. He is God. He is not a creator who would be far away from his creation. He wants to be close to his creation even when the creation is damaged by the Fall, by sin.

The eternal Word wanted to be close to the mankind even though the mankind was fallen and did not recognise him. Or should I rather speak in the present tense: The eternal Word wants to be close to this fallen Mankind who does not recognise him, at least does not recognise him with its own abilities. We need his grace in order to be able to see him, who is the light of the world. Without him we belong to those in darkness, to those who does not understand him. He is the light that we cannot see with our eyes but with our hearts.

But whoever receives him and believes in him gets from him the right to become God’s child. Anyone who had received him and believes in him has God as his or her Father. Today we celebrate the birth of the Son of God but we may also celebrate the birth of all God’s children. We can celebrate the coming of Heaven into our lives.

Two thousand years ago the Word became flesh, the Word became a human being. The Word who had lived in the other reality forever came into this world where we live. We call that other reality often “heaven”, and a song says “Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace”.

Glory and grace — they are surely things that do not describe our world, world corrupted by sin. And still, the eternal Word wanted to come here. He had no obligation to come here. He could have stayed in that other reality, in the heaven forever. He could have avoided the pains and sorrows of a human being. He could have avoided the suffering on the cross. Her could have lived on in a reality with no limits of place and time.

But he chose to become a human being. He chose to enter this world and this reality with all limits we live in. Why? Because he wanted to bring the eternal light to the people living under the shadows of death and fear. He wished that we would live a life filled with glory and grace, a heavenly life. He wants to have always new citizens of his Kingdom from all the nations of the world. He loved and he loves his creation, people created by himself.

I find the very essential points of the message John gives us in the preface of his gospel spoken out in the great Nicene Creed in which we say:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

God from God, Light from Light, / true God from true God, / begotten, not made, / of one Being with the Father; / through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven. / For our sake he was crucified.

Eternal Word, eternal God came down from heaven for us, for our salvation, for our sake.

Let us affirm our faith in the same God who became flesh!