What is the Masai Creed all about?
Confession of Faith (The Masai Creed)
We believe in the one High God,
(One is key because many Africans are animists, worshipping many things and gods)
who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created Man and wanted Man to be happy in the world.
(Kikuyu creation story: 9 girls given to the first man and woman to give the nine tribes of the Kikuyus. Creation was not out of love but on accident. Gods are there for punishment in storms and disaster and wars.)
God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the Earth.
(tribes are natural enemies of each other and therefore how could God love another tribe?)
We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know Him in the light.
(Africans have a vague idea of a supreme God but not fully sure of how or who)
God promised in the book of His word, the Bible, that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes. (there is one book even though there are many other books out there)
We believe that God made good His promise by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left His home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him,
(burial after death was not common, even as recent as 10 years ago for Samburu and Masai, so the hyenas would eat the dead. But because Jesus was not dead but rose again, the hyenas could not eat him.)
and on the third day, He rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.
We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Him. All who have faith in Him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the Good News to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for Him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.