Luke 13:22-30
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
August 21, 2022
Focus: God calls His people.
Function: That the hearers recline at table in the kingdom of God.
Structure: .
The Narrow Door of Paradise
Consider with me one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, even called an apostle in Luke 6:13 – Judas Iscariot. We actually know very little about him. His father’s name was Simon. His name, Iscariot, is Hebrew for “man of Kerioth,” a city roughly twenty miles south of Bethlehem. And he betrayed Jesus with a kiss for thirty pieces of silver.
And betrayal implies closeness. Judas could betray Jesus because he was with Him, he’d met Him. He actually knew Jesus in the flesh. For three years. They traveled the land of Judea together. Together, they shared cramped quarters or slept under the stars. Together they ate and drank. Together they worked, taught, healed, and proclaimed the coming kingdom of God.
Arguably, Judas’s resume looks better than any of ours. He was even responsible for carrying the money bag for Jesus and the other disciples. And yet, despite such a closeness, Judas abandoned his faith. Judas doesn’t make it.
Today’s gospel reading brings that warning directly home to each of us. That it’s possible to once share in the things of God, and yet not enter Paradise. I can’t give you the context for the conversation, at least not as closely as I’d like. We don’t even know who asked this question or why. It’s a downer of a question to begin with, almost as though they’d just walked through the rough part of a town, observing open sins on the streets, and someone turned to Jesus despairing of all this evil, and asked, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” It’s also possible the question came from a position of pride, like that of the Pharisees. “Surely, I’m in, but what about all these other people? Lord, will those who are saved be few?”
The Holy Spirit didn’t consider it worth our knowing, as He didn’t inspire Luke to tell us. Let us instead then, focus on what He did give us, the very words of our Master Jesus Christ.
We learn from Jesus that the door to Paradise is narrow. Slender, short, small. We’ve reached that point of the year again where there are crowds, hordes of people seeking to enter Arrowhead Stadium, pushing and shoving their way together through those gates. That won’t be the scene on the Last Day. There will be few seeking to enter by the narrow door, while the rest are driven away to the pits of Hell.
Our gospel today isn’t a parable, some kind of a story Jesus makes up to teach a particular point or lesson to His followers. No, this text is a depiction of the Day of Judgment. That the Master of the house, Jesus Himself, will have shut the doors to Paradise, so that no more may enter it. It’s like the account of the ark in the Old Testament. As long as Noah was building it, the ark was open. Repentance was possible. People could hear the judgment, and also the good news of salvation through that water, from the lips of Noah. But they didn’t. They could care less as they went about their lives as usual. That is, until Yahweh shut the door of the ark. Then as the rains begin to fall, and the waters to pile up, we can imagine how many may banged on the walls of that boat before they finally drowned.
So on the Last Day, Jesus will gather His people, His bride, the Church, to Himself in His house, and He’ll shut the door. At that point, it’s final. No one else can come in, try as they may. Once they see the horrors of Hell that await them, no amount of banging on the narrow door will matter. No excuses, no self-justifications, it will be final.
Jesus admits that they’ll try anyway. Those banging on the door, wanting at this point desperately to avoid their own destruction, will declare, “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.” Essentially, they make the case that they know Jesus. They’ve listened to Him, even dined with Him. Why is He shutting the door to them?
Just like Judas, there will be many cast aside on the Day of Judgment who dined with Jesus, who heard Him preach. He entered the homes of sinners and tax collectors and Pharisees alike. He healed all sorts of people, and preached in every town and village along the way. But for many, this became a false confidence: “I’ve met the Messiah, so I’m good!” Yet, in reality, they could care less about faith and Jesus. They just went about their lives as usual.
This text from Jesus is meant to be a warning to us. Our Hebrews’ epistle says that we will not escape the judgment if we reject Him, Jesus, who warns us from heaven. Let’s review for a moment: how are we saved? Pause. By grace, through faith. It’s entirely a gift. Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness, life, and salvation are gifts of Jesus that we receive by faith. Not a work. We can’t earn them. Jesus has already earned them, paid for them, by His blood shed upon the cross. Now He simply seeks to give them to you.
But the gifts of Jesus aren’t forced upon us. They aren’t irrefusable. If you’d rather have your life in this world, to just go about life as usual, Jesus will let you. But you’ll find the narrow door shut to you on the Last Day.
Essentially, this is a warning against lawlessness, which has been around since Jesus ascended into heaven. It’s the idea that once you have Jesus, the law doesn’t matter anymore. That, as a Christian, you’re free. You can live however you want, do whatever you want, and you’ll be fine. One way we see this today is with the idea of doctrine, which just means teaching. So many say that the doctrines of the Church don’t matter, we’re all Christians, and should just leave it at that. To say otherwise or tell someone they’re wrong is unloving. But that mindset has now advanced to the point where many say that a loving God wouldn’t send anyone to Hell, so all people on this earth will be saved, whether they believed in Jesus or not.
But there’s a more dangerous lie that tempts us. “Jesus accepts and loves me just the way I am” is a deadly saying rapidly making its way through the Church and destroying faith in its wake. People want to go about their lives as usual. “You can’t look at my life and declare the things I love to be sins.” Be prepared to be hated if you do.
It’s as though people actually believe, that in that moment when they were baptized, their pastor slipped one of those Monopoly “get out of jail free” cards into their gown. And from the moment of baptism until the moment they face the grave, it doesn’t matter what they do, how they live, whose voices they let fill them up, who they serve, who they love. No, to these people, come the Day of Judgment, they’ll be searching all of their pockets for that little card to turn it at the door. “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.” That sounds a lot like Word and Sacrament, doesn’t it? Eating and drinking in His presence and hearing His Word? And indeed, those things are central and core to who we are as the Church. So, notice how close to home for us the text comes.
Jesus ends His answer saying, “Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” That’s not a conversation about all Christians and varying levels of reward in Paradise. Last? Outside the Church. First? In the Church. The last who will be first are the nations, the Gentiles, those who were apart from God and His promises. They were last to hear the Gospel, and yet some of them will be first, they will be His people, gathered with Him in the place of honor at His table. But, those who were first, the Jews who were His chosen people, some of them will be last, that is, no longer of the faith, but cast out. That’s the direction Jesus turns next as the text continues and He laments over the city of Jerusalem, and how He longed to gather them as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but they were not willing.
See how the devil can use this text to cause doubt in us. That as Jesus speaks words of judgment, that not all who seek Him are saved, we begin to wonder what that means for us. And unfortunately, this seems to be a hope-shattering text for many.
So, how do I know? How do I know if I’m going to be saved? Lord, will those who are saved be few? Let me address that last question first. Comparatively, yes, those who are saved will be few. In the world right now, of roughly 8 billion people, approximately ¼ of them, 2 billion, are Christian. And those are simply the visible church, the ones who claim to be Christian, but some of them will likely hear these very words of Jesus on the Last Day. The door is narrow. Salvation is not the majority position.
But is the number of people who will get to live forever with Christ in Paradise actually few? As in, just a handful of all those who have ever walked this earth? The answer to that is “no.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses popularized the idea that Revelation 7’s 144,000 was a literal number. That would be extremely shocking and depressing, and would lead nearly all of us to despair. But just a few verses later, John reveals that the number of saints gathered around the throne was a “great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.” Paradise will be full. The new heaven and the new earth that Jesus is preparing for us even now will be full. And as our Lord Jesus said, “people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.” The door of Paradise is open to you, O people of the west.
But that’s the shaken-hope, doubt-driven question raised by this text. How do I know that the door of Paradise is open to me?
By His death upon the cross, Jesus opened the door of Paradise to all people, just like that open ark before the flood waters came. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” – John 3:16. “As I live, declares the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” – Ezekiel 33:11. “[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” – 1 Timothy 2:4.
You’ve been invited. By the waters of baptism and the proclamation of the gospel, this faith has been made yours. You are His child. It’s not something you can earn, but a gift that’s already paid for, a gift that is so lovingly given. To you. For you. From Jesus. And this isn’t a competition. The Pharisees typically had perfect attendance at church. And yet, many of them won’t be there.
Here’s the warning of the text: if you think you can live your life business as usual, spending your days doing whatever you please, and just say on the Last Day, “I know Jesus,” things will end very badly for you. The door of Paradise has been opened to you through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! You’ve been a gift of infinite value, more than anything this world could possibly offer you. Rejoice in this gift of faith. Treasure it, treasure Jesus. Live in Him. And spend your days doing the good works God has prepared for you, as a part of His family, showing others that Jesus indeed has made the door to Paradise open to them, also.
The Gospel in a Nutshell 