The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Love of God, and The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you All. Amen.
Luke 13:22 “And He was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching, and proceeding on His way to Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to Him, ‘Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?’ And He said to them, 24 ‘Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, “Lord, open up to us!” then He will answer and say to you, “I do not know where you are from.” 26 Then you will begin to say, “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets”; 27 and He will say, “I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.” 28 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being cast out. 29 And they will come from east and west, and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. 30 And behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.”
It has been a few chapters since Luke reminded us that Jesus was passing through one town and village after another preaching and teaching because He had set His face toward Jerusalem. But in this morning lesson, Luke reminded us again of that fact. “And He was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching, and proceeding on His way to Jerusalem.” Everything that Jesus said and did throughout His earthly ministry must always be understood against this backdrop. Because it is against the backdrop of the Gospel, Christ’s substitutionary atoning sacrifice that Jesus’s doctrine and works must be understood.
So in this morning’s Gospel lesson we find Jesus doing what He did in every town and village. He was teaching the difference between Law and Gospel and what it meant to be a child of God the Father. As He was doing this a man approached Him and asked if only a few who would be saved. The fact that he asked a question about people being saved, indicates that it was part and parcel of Jesus’s preaching.
The man’s question was a rather general and theoretical one. He wanted to talk about how the Gospel related to the masses, the great multitude of humanity. He wanted to deal with the big picture of salvation. That happens a lot when people get around to talking about Jesus and the way of salvation. Today that thought is often expressed in words something like this. “What about all those people who never hear the Gospel preached? What about them? It isn’t fair to condemn them to hell if they haven’t had an opportunity to accept Jesus. God wouldn’t do that.”
That might well be the kind of thing going on with this questioner. Or this inquisitor might be trying to divine an answer to his own status in a more subtle way. “What are my chances?” “Lord, [he says] are there just a few who are being saved?” Now it has been my experience that the only person who asks a question like that is a person who is unclear about the way of salvation and people who are unclear about the way of salvation are also people who are concerned that they might not be among one of those who are being saved.
If Jesus’s answer goes something like this, “Don’t worry, all kinds of people, with all kinds of beliefs and lifestyles will be enter the pearly gates,” then a person will likely think that there are many being saved and that his or her chances are pretty good as well. The question is more of a confidence question. How can I be sure I am among the ones being saved?
As is often the case, a person in the Gospel record asks one kind of question and Jesus answers another, or others types of questions. You have seen this happen in just about every interview of every politician and political activist on TV. They are asked a question and use that question to launch into an answer that has nothing to do with the question.
Well Jesus often does the same sort of thing, only when He does it, it is for the sake of the hearers. He is teaching the questioners and His disciples to think more percisely, correctly about the Law, the Gospel, and the kingdom of heaven.
The questioner here asked a question which on the surface seems to express concern about the masses. But in His response, Jesus moves the conversation from general and theoretical to the specific. The Gospel though isn’t about the masses. It’s not about faceless and nameless groups of people, like all those people who have never heard the Gospel. The Gospel, like the call to repentance, giving of the gift of faith and forgiveness of sins is always specific and personal. It’s about and to you and me. It’s about the narrow door; faith, repentance, forgiveness, and being saved.
“‘Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?’ And [Jesus] said to them, 24 ‘Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’” (Luke 13:23–25)
The Greek word used here that is translated “strive,” as in “Strive to enter by the narrow door” is the root for the English word “agony/agonize.’ Agōnēzō is the word used here. The Greek word can also mean “fight” as we see in the instruction the Apostle Paul gave to Timothy. “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). The word can also mean an ongoing struggle.
The man wants to know how many (a few or a lot) are going to be saved and Jesus replies in two ways. The way is narrow and a narrow way can accommodate a few, a short line or many a long line. Second, Jesus tells the questioner and all Christians that the Christian life is an life long, ongoing fight and struggle.
Enter the Epistle lesson. It says the same sort of thing that Jesus says here. Hebrews 12:6-8 “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”
We talked a bit about this kind of thing in Bible class last week. Athletes undergo conditioning and conditioning is painful. Conditioning involves discipline and a kind of punishment that will bring about well being. The Christian life is a harder life, a life of struggle against sin, the old nature, and the world that is hostile to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Being saved is not something that happens once and done. This where a lot of baptized formerly church going people go wrong. Jesus teaches here that we ought to concern ourselves with the struggle of the Christian life. Our attention is to be on the life of following, believing, learning, and being Christians. We are to focus on the path that Christ has given us to walk. Namely the way of the cross. That does not mean that you ought to spend your life in a kind of spiritual naval gazing.
True Christian faith takes up one’s cross and follows the Christ. True Christian faith lives in the midst of the struggles, temptations, and failures of every days life. Thus the call to repent, to confess one’s sins, to receive holy absolution, and to trust that for Christ’s sake your sins are really forgiven.
Having introduce us and His contemporary hearers to the idea that a person should be concerned with the struggle of faith in their own lives, Jesus also teaches us what kind of struggle doesn’t work.
When the master of the house shuts the door, it’s too late to struggle. “‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’” (Luke 13:25–27)
How many will be saved, a few or a lot? The answer those Christians who stove, struggled, and fought in faith and who are on the right side of the door when it is closed. Those are the ones who are being saved.
Those who thought it was “once and done,” something that God did in the past (baptized me) and who fall away from their the church and their Savior will not be on the right side of the door when it closes. The master does not even recognize them. In that moment when they realize they are outside of the kingdom they will panic and beg for entry. “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.” (Luke 13:26) These people seem to think that simply being around Jesus grants them entry. For these folks there is no struggle of faith. There is no fight to die to self and rise to Christ.
They even admit that they heard Jesus teach in their streets. They ate with Him, but to no benefit. They thought that the master should open heaven because they had gone through all the motions.
The God of all love and mercy, the God Who made both heaven and earth, also turns out to be a rather exclusive God. One of my college professors use to say that God dictates the terms of the relationship. We don’t. When time is up there will be only two groups of people.
To one group Jesus says, “I do not know where you are from.” “I tell you, I do not know where you are from; ‘DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.’” Thus the result . . . weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But then there are the others. These others though are not spoken of as a group. Rather, they are individualized. Jesus said of them, 29 “they will come from east and west, and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.” These are the ones whom Jesus knows, calls by name, and welcomes into the banquet feast.
The questioner was looking for a general idea or number of those who are being saved. What Jesus gives us is the lesson in the Law, the Gospel, repentance, faith, and the Christian life, which is a life of striving continuously to be what we have been made to be.
When Jesus was baptized, His feet were placed on the road to our salvation. He did not depart it. There were not many paths. It was not a wide road. It was one narrow path to Mt. Calvary. He set His face toward Golgotha and strove with all His might to walk the path and accomplish the work of our salvation. He died for the sins of the world, but He is saving you in the Word and sacrament ministry of the church. He is disciplining you as a son and daughter of God the Father.
Hebrews 12:22-24 “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.”
AMEN
May the Peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.