Immanuel and St. John's: August 2016

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Proper 16 - G - 2016 - The Narrow Door

Video from this week is not available.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is from the Gospel lesson just read, especially these words, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, ²⁴“Strive to enter through the narrow door” Thus far our text.

Dear friends in Christ. The world would have you believe that the door to salvation is wide. That all who are judged good people by the court of the world are saved. That Love Wins. That all faiths worship the one God in different ways. We are taught and believe that all religions have an equal claim to truth. In fact even beyond organized religion, our world today believes that every person can claim their own truth and that they are all equal valid. Wide is the way that leads to God, so the world would have you believe.

And so many of believe that the details of the faith aren’t important. We can skip learning the bible, because its not important. We can skip church, because love wins. We can do what we want to in our lives, because God we’ll be saved if we want to be saved. The path is wide, so how can we misstep? The door is wide, so it will be easy to enter.

But Jesus says something different in our Gospel lesson. He speaks of a narrow door. A door that one must agonize to enter. The Greek word translated as strive in our text is the same one we get that word agonize from. It’s the same word used in Timothy when Paul says, “Fight the good fight of faith,” – literally agonize the good agony of faith. So agonize to enter the narrow door.

What does that mean? Well it would seem at first that it would be about us. We need to fight to get in the narrow door. To keep ourselves on the straight and narrow path. And we try to do this, don’t we? But the problem is we fail at that endeavor. When we deal with the law we find we fall short time and again. We fall short. We sin. No matter how hard we strive, we’d fail to enter through the narrow gate by our own work or merit. We’d be shut outside, shouting to enter in, but the response would be, “I do not know you.” And outside there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So what does it mean to enter by the narrow gate, to agonize to do so? To understand we have to focus on the very first words of today’s pericope. “Jesus went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.” These word set the stage for our entire text for today. They echo words found earlier in the Gospel of Luke, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Why is he going to Jerusalem? To go to the cross. To die for sin. To shed his blood for sinners. To forgive you by his agony and death. And his blood speaks the words of forgiveness for us.

By his death the narrow gate is swung open. In his death sinners are pulled through that gate into the joys of eternal paradise. Even you can be forgiven by the death of Jesus, even you can be saved by Christ’s Agony.

And you share in the agony of Christ’s path through the narrow door. You experience the agony of Christ in your life as a baptized Christian. You experience the forgiveness of the agony of Christ in your eating and drinking of his body and blood from this altar. You travel along the narrow path of salvation by hearing regularly the word of God, and in joyful response confessing your faith. Jesus is the narrow path of salvation. All other paths fail. All other paths lead to destruction.

It is as Jesus himself says, “I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10). “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes the father except through me.” (John 14) God through his word and sacraments focuses us on Jesus so that we may enter through the narrow gate.

And this informs everything we do as Lutherans. We follow the liturgy in our services because it focuses us on Jesus. We begin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit so all we do is in Jesus’ name. We announce forgiveness of sins in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. We read the holy scriptures which point to Jesus. We sing the hymns that tell us the truth of who Jesus is – even when there are 15 verses. We distribute Christ’s body and blood as often as possible for forgiveness of sins. All that we do points us to Jesus. We don’t just mindlessly do these things week by week – or atleast we shouldn’t, we do them because they focus our faith upon Jesus, the author and founder of our faith.

And so, in Jesus, wide open stands the gate for us who are in Christ. We are brought through on the narrow path of Christ. We enter heaven because of Christ, we are saved because of Christ. We have hope for this life and the life to come only because of Christ.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.