You Need to be Catholic
St. John 3:1-15
June 16, 2019 anno Domini – Redeemer
Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally. And the catholic faith is this, That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.
First, the annual reminder about that word catholic. It does not mean Roman Catholic. It comes from two Greek words – kata which means “according to” and holos which means whole, as in the whole thing.
For instance if you ordered a cookie dough blizzard at Dairy Queen and you picked out all the cookie dough, then sprinkled the cookie dough with pepper, ate it and left the ice cream, you would not be catholic toward that blizzard. You only ate the cookie dough and you defiled it with pepper. Catholic means to swallow God’s Word whole and undefiled.
When the Athanasian Creed was written, a number of heresies, false teachings had arisen which denied parts of Holy Scripture. Some believed that Jesus was a man, but not true God. Others that the Holy Spirit was not a person of the Trinity, but a force or power. The Athanasian Creed insists on believing and confessing the whole of Scripture for salvation. If you leave out parts your faith is in danger. If you don’t believe in infant baptism you are not catholic – accepting the whole. If you don’t believe it is Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper you’re taking away part of Christ’s Word. If you like Jesus but don’t go to church you’re cutting off the Holy Spirit. That is not catholic.
This might sound strange coming from an uber-Lutheran pastor and you might report me to Synod HQ, but our greatest temptation and sin is not being catholic. There are parts of God’s Word you do not like. Some of you don’t like the verses that say certain people should not take communion – especially when that certain person is your son or daughter. I’ve been teaching and preaching quite a bit about stewardship and there are many Bible verses that upset me – because they hammer my conscience for my own sins when it comes to greed and earthly wealth.
When we hear the 10 Commandments we like the parts where other people’s sins get pointed out, but we have selective hearing when our own sins are exposed and our consciences are hammered. We are tempted to be sub-catholic or part-catholic, but your very salvation is in danger if you only take part of God’s Word.
Look at Nicodemus in today’s Gospel reading. Nicodemus was not catholic when he came to Jesus. How do I know? Because Nicodemus came to Jesus at night secretly and did not confess him in the daylight. He had trouble swallowing the whole truth that Jesus gave him. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Jesus teaches Nicodemus the catholic way of salvation. When you were born you had nothing to do with it. Your parents conceived you and your mother labored to deliver you. Jesus was saying, “Nicodemus, you cannot bring any part of you into the Kingdom. Being a Pharisee isn’t enough. Being smart isn’t enough. Being a good father and husband isn’t enough. You have nothing but sin on your own. My Father must give you a new birth, a birth from above. You must be born again from heaven.
Nicodemus responds by still wanting to do his part in salvation, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus keeps giving the whole way of salvation. It is God’s work and God’s work alone. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
According to God’s Word, God, the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does all the work of saving you and bringing you into His Kingdom. God the Father created you, in His image. Humans are the only creatures that communicate with God, that receive His love, return His love, and love one another, but when we sinned we lost our love for Him and our love for one another. Now every human is born according to the flesh of Adam, sinful from the moment of conception. Flesh gives birth to flesh. You cannot dispute that fact when you look in the mirror, or at your family, or watch the evening news.
In His great mercy, the Father sent His Son. The Son of God became man, conceived by the Holy Spirit, incarnate of the Virgin Mary. Jesus, true God and true man, kept all the commandments all His life and then offered His perfect body on the cross for the sin of the world, for your sin. Did you play any part in that? Were you there when they crucified our Lord? Did you help raise Him from the dead? No. The whole work of salvation was worked by Jesus alone.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven He promised the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Spirit empowered the Apostles to remember all that Jesus said and did, so they could write it, preach it, and confess it to the world. The Spirit gave the Church specific tools to bring the gifts of Jesus to the world – God’s Word, the water of baptism, the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, the keys to heaven – forgiving the sins of those who repent and not forgiving those who willfully live on in sin. The Spirit blows when and where He pleases to bring people to faith. And He pleases to work in preaching, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and confession.
What part of that catholic faith can you leave out and still be saved? What happens if you leave out the Father’s creation? We humans become like every other creature – an evolutionary accident with no value. What happens if you leave out Jesus? Christianity becomes a religion not a faith in historical facts and confession of a certain hope. Without Jesus, all that’s left is “you’d better be good” and then “hope” God grades on a curve because you don’t even stand up to your own definition of good much less God’s definition. If you leave out the Spirit, you get another morning at home on the weekend. You get to do whatever you want on Sunday mornings. You get to keep 10% of your income. But you forfeit the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of your body, and the life everlasting. You end up all alone instead of communing with the saints on earth, and the angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven.
By the end of John’s Gospel Nicodemus was catholic. No longer did he hide by night, but he came forth publicly in the daytime with Joseph of Arimathea to claim the body of Jesus. He believed that God the Father had loved the world in this way – He sacrificed His only Son on the cross for the sin of the world, for his sin. We have no record of what happened to Nicodemus. He probably saw the risen Jesus. Perhaps he lost his life for the faith. All we know is that he believed the whole of God’s Word that Jesus taught him. He believed even though it wasn’t reasonable. Even though it would cost him. Even though there were parts of his life that would forever change. He believed the catholic faith – the whole faith which Jesus taught. Whoever desires to be saved, must above all, hold the catholic faith. So we hold to all our Father’s Word, given to us by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, because we desire all to be saved in the name of Jesus. Amen.