Friday, January 11, 2013

Enter the gate

As I sit to write this epic, something is amiss. There's this light, this very bright light, shining in my home office window. I can't recognize or recall what might be causing this. Oh, oh, yeah. It's the sun. The sun. I remember now, the sun.

This week has been a wet one. A tremendous wet one. Torrential rain has fallen, and one can only hope that this parish and its many occupants have completely survived. I watched the news last night, and so many homes have been flooded that I wonder what we can do as a church. Does it have to be hurricanes and bureaucracy for us to move?

I digress.

Today I wanted to talk, briefly, about a passage that intrigues me.

In the seventh chapter of Matthew, the Bible reads, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

That verse used to creep me out, scare me half-to-death and all those other phrases that signify fear.

Why?

I was convinced even after conversion of my inadequacy. Clearly, too, I want to find the easy way of doing everything.

Today that verse doesn't creep, scare or intimidate ... but not because of any advanced learning about it. I simply know that Jesus is the gate, and I am the lost sheep that wonders in (almost without my comprehension at times) into this thing we call salvation.

Now, that doesn't mean I still have trouble or that the path is an easy one. Oh, to the contrary.

It simply means that Jesus is the way, the gate, the door, and I am the lost one who bumped into the one who was still, still searching for him.

Isn't that what we do when we, as a church, help those who are flooded, or those who had a fire, or those who simply don't understand the very difficult techno-grab called grace?

The way is narrow. But Jesus pulls us through.

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