“[A]re only a few people going to be saved”?  One can ask that expecting an affirmative answer.  One can ask expecting a negative answer.  I mean, if Jesus says no, if he says many will be saved, or all, that takes some pressure off, doesn’t it?  If all will be saved (the universalist stance), then let’s eat, drink, and be merry indeed.  But will we be holy?  But if all will be saved, why would holiness matter?  And before we get too far into answering that question, let’s make ourselves mindful of how holiness happens, and through whom.

You and I are not and cannot be holy, except through the grace of God who calls us to His holiness, which means God calls us to live by a faith that looks like something.  Not that we are supposed to make a show of our faith.  But neither can we just talk about faith with a happy glow in our heart and then go about our usual business in the usual way.  Growing a faith that looks like something takes a lifetime.  Is there no progress, then, until the end?  Lord willing, there’s progress all along the way.  And it is God’s will that progress is made, all along, even if by difficult, small steps.  Let’s not sell God short because we aren’t where we’d like to be or think we ought to be in our discipleship, by now.  We do nothing in our own strength, except defy God.

“[A]re only a few people going to be saved.”  If Jesus says, yes, only a few, what sort of response will that elicit?  Relief?  Outrage?  I mean, what will be the deciding factor in the case that only a few shall have salvation?  Who will decide?  And what are the qualifications of the one who gets to decide?  Lawyers worth the degree will have a keen interest in whose courtroom they will be arguing.  You want a judge inclined to see things your way, and, most of the time, this is exactly the god and savior we make for ourselves.

So, let’s step back a moment.  What does Luke tell us here, again?  Jesus is now on his way to Jerusalem (13:22).  He’s going for one purpose, one appointment with eternity.  He goes for all who will be saved.  He is not going for those who will not be saved.  He tells us as much in different places (for example, Jn 17:6, 9), but we don’t like to listen.  He goes voluntarily, though I won’t say he goes with great eagerness, knowing all he will be required to undergo.  I mean, would you be?  A pastor friend in Charleston could not abide that old Shaker hymn “Lord of the Dance,” especially where it got to this part: “They whipped, and they stripped, and they hung me on high, And they left me there on a cross to die”—the music is so bright and lilting, through that part!  A bit jarring.  We remember those tears like blood Jesus wept in the garden, and the angel who came to strengthen him.  Thirty-three—who is ready to die at thirty-three?

But Jesus isn’t just on his way to Jerusalem: he is teaching as he goes, making the most of the time, not letting opportunities slip.  Jesus is always teaching, beloved, through what he does as well as what he says.  With Jesus, there is no contradiction: his words become substantial through his actions, and his actions affirm his words.  One of the big charges scattershot at us as Christians is that we are hypocrites, and we feel the sting, but our best response is, Yes, of course!  Unlike who?  Jesus came, the Spirit is with us, entirely because we of ourselves are incapable of making word and deed match properly.  Take a read through Romans 7.

Someone on the way asks Jesus, wants to know, for any of many reasons: “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” (13:23).  Now, the answer Jesus gives speaks to the question even as Jesus shifts the focus.  Many will be unable to enter through the door.  Well, we might want to think about that door a moment.  We hear a lot about it in John’s account.  The door, of course, is the way in, the authorized, provided way in.  Now, yes, some may try to enter through a window, or just break through the wall.  But a door has been provided, for a reason.  The door is Jesus.  Not to pick on poor Bill Maher, but it’s clear he’s read in the Bible and is not uninformed, even if he remains unconvinced.  Not just unconvinced but unmoved.  Jesus is not his Savior.  For Maher, who is not alone in thinking this way, Jesus is a delusion, maybe never even actually existed, not even historically.  The door is open, nonetheless.  Maher and those who think like him will not enter through it.  It is not a door, for them, but a stumbling block.

Jesus shifts the question—few, many—what concern, really, is that of ours?  Can I change the number of the elect?  God has made His decrees.  It is not for me to know who is and who is not among the elect.  That is not my concern.  A faithful walk is my concern, so, too, encouraging a faithful walk among my brothers and sisters in Christ.  That I know and love Christ, and have some desire to live his way, is evidence of the presence and power of God at work in me.  That I want to be some part of God’s means of bringing others into a loving, life-making relationship with God is evidence of the presence and power of God at work in me.  Praise His name.  So, my first concern is and can only be with my own walk.  But I walk with others and among those who do not walk.  I am concerned for both, by God’s mercy and grace.  Our life, and in Christ, is always lived alongside others.

I am not unaware of others; in Christ, I cannot be.  I go to them, with and for Christ.  I offer them water, oil, bread, wine.  I tell them about the door and that it is open.  I invite them to walk with me, and I try to support them along the walk.  But whether they walk, how they walk, and where they walk—this is not in my power.  God has not put such things into my power.  God is wise.  God is just.  God is compassionate.  God will not force anyone contrary to his or her inclination, and God cultivates a new inclination in those it has pleased Him to claim for Himself.  He does not claim all: our own experience tells us this.  We don’t have to like it.  We can even lament it; we can be angry with God about it.  And let us not forget the blessings God lavishes, still, upon everyone, without discrimination.  Let’s not allow lament to overpower praise and thanks.  We are not a people without hope.  Let us hope, then.

Hope teaches us to strive, even when the striving puts us under some stress and strain.  Beloved, we strive because there is already resistance, coming at us from the world around us and from within.  You and I might not see much value in bodybuilding, but we do know that our doctors more and more are encouraging some resistance training as well as that cardio we are all supposed to be doing.  But weights, even just bodyweight exercises—ugh.  That’s hard.  But what happens when we allow our muscles to atrophy?  No one who sets about the work of transformation begins already transformed.  It is a work of time, discipline and enduring what is hard for the sake of something better: more robust health, strength, flexibility, poise, self-control, confidence, a sense of achievement.  I’d say these are good—especially when we recognize and acknowledge the one with us to help us.

So, to the question he is asked Jesus answers, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to” (13:24).  Will try, but not necessarily through the door.  Every effort—strive, strain, endure, patiently, passionately, prayerfully.  If it were impossible, why bother?  Why would Jesus even mention it?  We bother with all of this re-purposed living only because it is possible to enter through the door.  Jesus tells us it is, shows us it is, beckons to us, assuring us it is possible and that he wants us with him.  God holds the door open for us, in the open arms of Jesus Christ.  Always open, until the door is closed.

Closed?  Christ’s arms?  Surely not!  But Jesus himself tells us “the owner of the house” will close the door (13:25).  The one place no one ought to want to be, then, is on the wrong side of that door.  Jesus tells us—yes, let us shudder!—that there will be those on the other side, unable to enter.  Only then, the door closed, will they be finally, “knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’  But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from’” (13:25).  That hurts.  Ever change your mind, too late?  You know, I do want to take that cruise . . . as the ship is being pushed away from the dock.  Yes, I will go with you!  As the car turns at the corner at the end of the block.  Too late.  I suppose we’ve all experienced too late at least once in our lives, and we’ve vowed not to experience it twice, by grace, praise God.

“I don’t know you or where you come from.”  Rephrased, that’s saying there is no relationship and never has been.  That’s saying to this person: well, you never seemed interested and never bothered even to make some preliminary gestures toward acting like you even thought about considering a relationship, a connection, learning more.  There’s usually some sort of “did so, too” response: “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’  But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.  Away from me, all you evildoers!’” (13:26-27).  Yeah, Jesus!  Remember?  That one time?  You were there.  We were there.  When Jesus puts things strongly, it’s to get our attention, to get us to think, everyone listening.  Do you want it to be that way, for you?  If I tell you the day will come when it’s too late, and you accept that, what do you think it would probably be best to be doing, right now?

“[Y]ou evildoers,” ouch.  So, is like an evildoer some sort of monster of sin?  Maybe.  What’s the opposite of an evildoer, here, though?  A good doer, a do-gooder?  No, not exactly.  A righteousness-doer.  And who is righteous?  He’s told us.  He tells us who counts as his family.  He’s given a us a model for prayer, how to direct our thoughts and hearts toward God.  Those who will be regarded as righteous, for the sake of our Savior and Lord, are those who do the will of our Father in heaven.  Anything else, less, is not simply neutral.  Anything contrary to God’s will is unrighteousness, evil.  Evil won’t get anyone life.  Life is on the way of righteousness; righteousness leads to Life.

Jesus was doing what, all along the way?  Teaching, healing, proclaiming, showing, inviting in.  A crowd followed, different ones in the crowd for their own reasons.  There were also those who remained behind, touched and transformed.  They remained because Jesus told them to stay where they were, to testify, witness: these journeyed on with Jesus in spirit if not in the body—those from whom Jesus cast out demons, cured of their incurable maladies, those to whom he gave sight, restored hearing, whose limbs he steadied and strengthened for walking, working, and those whom he raised from the dead.  We aren’t told that, in every instance, every one of them then joined the crowd trekking to Jerusalem.  But if they were not in that procession, this does not mean they rejected and deplored Jesus.  No, many of them remained where they were, just as Jesus had instructed them, telling anyone who would listen about all that God had done for them.

And there were those who, seeing, didn’t see and who, hearing, didn’t hear, didn’t care, weren’t moved by Jesus.  They ate once or twice, but declined to be fed; they listened a few times but chose not to be taught.  They waved off any overture of closer relationship.  Jesus has never hidden this.  Why do we?