One of the prevailing views of the world after the Second World War was that God had abandoned the world – look at the death camps, look at the slaughter, look at nuclear weapons, look at what our modern ever-improving humanity had achieved! But that view of God – that He has abandoned what He has made – remains, doesn’t it? We feel it as we wait as God’s people, and wonder about the promise of return and renewal. We speak it as we watch a world groaning under sin, as we feel the pain of loss or disappointment. If we are transparent and honest, we have all felt like God has abandoned us, and this world.

The next phrase of The Apostles’ Creed is an emphatic statement that God did not abandon Jesus, and so God has not abandoned all those connected to Jesus.