...be faithful today...

“22 Jesus went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 25 Once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!’ 28 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. 29 Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and take their places at the banquet in the kingdom of God. 30 Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” Luke 13:22-30.

The question about how many will be saved sends us to the question of ultimate and final salvation. Interestingly, Jesus refuses to answer this question directly; He will not give statistics and figures to satisfy our human curiosity. What Jesus gives is a stern warning, not least because in the setting of his journey to Jerusalem ‘being saved’ is not simply a matter of ultimate destination after death, but the more immediate and pressing question of the crisis that hangs over the nation.

In this setting, his warning is both appropriate and necessary. As he goes about his mission, he is holding open the gate of the kingdom and urging people to enter it. The door isn’t very wide, and it will take energy and commitment to get in; no question of strolling in by chance. One day, and not very long from now, the door will be shut, and it will be too late. God is giving Israel this last chance, through the work of Jesus, but he is the final messenger. If he is refused, there will be no further opportunity. The disciples in Acts urge people in his name to ‘save themselves from this crooked generation’ (Acts 2:40); if they do not respond to Jesus’ call, they will pull down on themselves the judgment that ‘this generation’ has incurred. Those who wait to see what happens later, and who then presume that because they once shared a festive banquet with Jesus they will somehow be all right, will find that there are no promises for those who did not take the chance when it was offered.

The promise, and warning, of Jesus is that the very people his contemporaries were eager to fight – the Gentiles from east and west, north and south, who had over the centuries oppressed, bullied and harried them – might at this rate end up in God’s kingdom ahead of them. The strange workings of God’s grace, in which, though some are chosen for particular roles, none is assured of automatic privilege, mean that some who are first will be last, and vice versa.

But be careful about lifting this passage out and applying it directly to the larger question of eternal salvation. Jesus’ urgent warnings to his own contemporaries were aimed at the particular emergency they then faced. But we should equally beware of assuming that it is irrelevant to such questions. Unless all human life is just a game; unless we are mistaken in our strong sense that our moral and spiritual choices matter; unless, after all, the New Testament as a whole has badly misled us – then it really is possible to stroll past the open gate to the kingdom of God, only to discover later the depth of our mistake.

Dear friends, it matters how we live our lives today. That’s why this prayer below is so important. That’s why I pray it every day.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.