“I am the gate.  Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (John 10:9) That’s the way the New Revised Version translates the more familiar words of Jesus, “I am the door.” Let us consider these words in the light of the customs and pastoral imagery of Jesus’ day to see if new light can be shed upon them. 

We might begin by considering a Palestinian shepherd.  In the East, the shepherd goes before the sheep, leading them, not driving them from behind.  The shepherd leads the sheep into the shelter of the sheepfold in the valley where they will spend the night.  The sheepfold is made of four high, rough walls, with thorns placed around the top to keep out thieves who might otherwise attempt to climb over.  In one of the walls there is a space a little larger than a man’s body.  The shepherd precedes his sheep, stands in the gap in the wall, facing outward, and calls his sheep by name as they come over the hillside.  He examines each sheep carefully for bruises and briars.  If a sheep has bruised his head from hitting a rock, or being butted by another sheep, the shepherd rubs oil into the wound.  “Thou anointest my head with oil.” If a sheep is thirsty, the shepherd gives him a drink.  Only after the shepherd is certain that each sheep is all right, does he allow it to enter the sheepfold. 

After the sheep are settled in, the shepherd builds a fire in the entrance, eats his evening meal, and watches his sheep by night.  Then he wraps himself in his cloak and lies down across the entrance.  The sheep therefore have no need to fear, for robbers cannot come over the walls, and wild animals will not enter because of their fear of the fire.  And, in addition, any intruder would have to pass by not only the fire, but the body of the shepherd lying across the entrance.  Thus, for the sheep, their shepherd is literally the “door” or the “gate” to the sheepfold.  Now we can see the background of Jesus’ words in the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel.  “I am the good shepherd,” He says.  And again, “I am the gate.  Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” The words are not contradictory to each other, but complimentary. 

Again we are confronted with that troubling sense of exclusiveness which John puts on the lips of Jesus.  We confront it also in Jesus’ words in John 14:6: “ I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” I will try to deal with those difficult words when we get to that chapter.  Here in Chapter 10 we find Jesus saying not “I am a gate,” but rather, I am the gate.” He is not one among many, but unique.  In a sermon on the subject “Aren’t All Religions Basically Alike?” (Number 32 in this series) I refer to the Baha’i Temple in Wilmette, Ill., with its nine windows, one for each of the great religious teachers.  Above an alcove in that building we read the words, “All the prophets of God proclaim the same faith.” I am sure that would come as a surprise to some of the prophets they honor, for there are vast differences of outlook between a number of them.  For some of these religious teachers, God is indifferent; for others, compassionate.  For some God is a mixture of light and darkness, good and evil.  But for Christianity, God is good.  “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all!” proclaims the New Testament. 

It is a noble but misguided idea, trying to blend all religious faiths into one, but the Jesus proclaimed by the Fourth Gospel refuses to be amalgamated into such a neat little pantheon.  Which reminds of a conversation I had with an African-American friend some years ago.  He took issue with the popular American notion of America as a vast “melting pot” for all peoples and races.  He said, “I don’t want to be melted into anybody’s pot!” Instead, he suggested that we might think of America as a vast salad bowl, where each race and nationality remains unique and add spice and flavor to the whole, without losing its specific identity.  Perhaps that is the way we must approach the world’s religions as well.  They do not all tell the same story, nor proclaim the same view of God.  They must be allowed to stand in their own individual uniqueness. 

Still, we must deal with what seems to be a certain exclusiveness proclaimed again and again by Jesus in John’s Gospel.  “I am the gate” says Jesus, and then, to add insult to injury, He goes on to say, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.  All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them.  I am the gate.  Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.   The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:7b-10) Undoubtedly, John was reflecting the situation at the time this Gospel was written.  He may have been referring to the many false Messiahs who had cropped up from time to time, who gained a small following among the people, but who usually resorted to force and violence and were soon put down by Rome.  One such person was Judas the Galilean who, according to Acts 5:37 began a revolutionary movement in the Galilee, but was executed by Rome.  Not, however, before he had started a movement which was later to become known as the “zealots.” Some have suggested that John’s words refer to the famous “teacher of Righteousness” revered by the community of Qumran along the shores of the Dead Sea which was gathering followers during the time of Jesus, and which preserved for us the famous Dead Sea Scrolls in those caves along the cliffs beside the Dead Sea.  Father Raymond Brown has written perhaps the most exhaustive commentary on John’s Gospel, and he says that in his opinion “...the Pharisees and Sadducees remain the most probable targets of Jesus’ remarks.  The unhappy line of priestly rulers and politicians from Maccabean times until Jesus’ own day could certainly be characterized as false shepherds, thieves, and robbers who came before Jesus.  And the Pharisees too had soiled themselves in the political power struggle in the Hasmonean and Herodian periods.” (The Gospel of John, Vol.  I, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday and Company, pp.  393-394)

At any rate, John was certainly reflecting the experience of the early Church, and of Christians over the subsequent centuries.  Vast numbers of people have heard Jesus words, and taken Him at His word, and have discovered that He was and is the gateway into the heart of God.  He was, and is, the door to the finest and truest understanding of God’s nature and God’s character that the world has ever known.  Before Jesus’ coming into the world people were confused and uncertain.  They tried all sorts of doors, but they only led them into blind alleys, Then Jesus came, and a door was opened, that seemed to be closed before.  No longer did people think of God as far off and remote, inaccessible, a stranger at best, an enemy at worst.  Jesus Christ opened the door to the heart of God and they discovered Him to be Companion and Friend.  Yes, there is a certain exclusivity to Jesus, just as there is a certain exclusivity to life...  have you ever noticed that in many areas of life, life is exclusive?  There is only one door to knowledge that I know, and that is study.  Learning cannot be achieved by osmosis.  I have been trying to find a short-cut to the hard work of preparing sermons and lectures for years, but it still eludes me.  Oh, the invention of the word processor has helped immensely, but it still seems that one must apply the seat of one’s pants to the seat of one’s chair and one’s mind to the hard and laborious task of study.  There is only one door to learning, and that is the door of study.

We might think of other examples of the exclusivity of life.  There is only one door to marital happiness, and that is the door of fidelity.  When either husband or wife begin to go in and out of other doors, that is the beginning of the end of a relationship.  There is only one door to good health, and that is to obey the rules of good health.  The person who persistently abuses his or her body cannot expect good health.  They might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later life catches up with them.  I have a hunch that the same thing holds true in the spiritual realm, as well.  I often think of the words of the late Dr.  Leslie Weatherhead of City temple in London, who was asked on a radio program near the end of his life, “What have you learned from life?” He replied that he had learned many things from the rough and tumble of 45 years in the Christian ministry, but the one outstanding thing he learned was this: “Life will only work out one way, and that is God’s way.  (God) made it like that.  Every other way has across it a barricade bearing a notice which says No thoroughfare this way.’ If you surmount the barrier, there is a precipice.  (We) will not learn the truth of a half dozen words: OUTSIDE GOD THERE IS ONLY DEATH!’ “ (Key Next Door, New York and Nashville: The Abingdon Press, 1941, pp.  88,89) I would add only one thing to his wise words.  From over forty years in the Christian ministry, I have learned one more thing: Outside of Jesus Christ I simply don’t know very much about God.  But with Him, I know that God is love.  I know that he is the gateway into the heart of a loving God.

“I am the gate for the sheep.   All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them.   I am the gate.  Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (John 7b-9) We don’t hear very much talk anymore in the major denominations about being “saved,” do we?  Perhaps that is because we have come across some pretty obnoxious people who have talked about it too much.  We are tired of people poking their noses into our souls and asking, “Are you saved?” I remember the story of a woman who was waiting for a bus at a bus stop in a large city, when she saw a prominent television evangelist coming her way.  She braced herself for what she thought would be the inevitable question, and when he asked, “Is this the place to catch the bus for downtown?” she replied curtly, “That’s a matter between me and my Maker!” But “salvation” is still a good word.  The Biblical root of the word means health and wholeness.  It means being in right relationship with God, with one’s neighbors, and with one’s truest and best self.  And which of us does not need that?  It seems to me that our world is perishing, marriages are perishing, communities are perishing, nations are perishing, because of their need for salvation.  We are all made by God for community: with God, and with one another.  God’s will for the world is community, not chaos.  Salvation is the state of being in right relationship with God, with others, and with our own best selves, the selves God created us to be.

Actually, there is more to these words of Jesus than simply “being saved.” Jesus said that “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” That phrase, “to come in and go out” is a Hebrew idiom which means peace and freedom.  To be able to come and go unmolested was the Jewish way of describing a life that was absolutely secure and safe.  When you can come and go as you please, without fear, then you are truly free.  Such freedom is not possible in many places in our world, even after the crumbling of the Berlin wall and the Iron Curtain.  So, the Biblical phrase “to come in and go out” is a way of proclaiming freedom and liberation.  The first Christian creed was formed out of an acrostic from the word “fish” in Greek, and said, simply, “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” And the main meaning of the word “Savior” (soter in Greek) does not refer simply to something that happens to us after we die.  God can take care of that, and too many Christians have been too preoccupied with “pie in the sky bye and bye when they die.” “Some Christians are so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good,” as the old saying goes.  The main thrust of the word is not about what will happen to us someday, but what is happening to us here and now.  Another word for “savior” is “liberator,” and that’s a very modern word, a word we very much need to hear.  In the early days of the Church most of the world was in bondage; if not physical bondage through slavery, then spiritual bondage to forms of religion and views of God which oppressed them and kept them down.  People believed that their lives were in the hands of a blind Fate, or in the stars (astrology), or in the hands of an unfeeling and uncaring despotic kind of God.  But Christ’s coming swept the skies of such demonic forces.  He came as Liberator, and many of us still need liberation: from fear, worry, anxiety, bad habits, unwholesome attitudes and practices, whatever.  Christ is saying that once we have entered the door He has opened for us, then we can come and go and find liberty and joy and fulfillment.  In the words of the famous Christmas hymn of Charles Wesley, Jesus Christ was “born to raise the sons (and daughters ) of earth; born to give them second birth.”

“I am the door,” the “gate,” or whatever...  the word suggests “home.” In a book titled Waiting Upon God and written by A.B.  Davidson in 1904, the author gives us this poignant statement about doors:

That figure of a door is worth dwelling on.  Christ uses it in a sort of absolute way.  There is a door, an entrance, a way in... he does not say in from where nor into what.  It is a way in, in where and in from what our own hearts will suggest to us...  Sometimes, when one comes in youth from a distant home to a great city where he is unknown and alone, he walks through the streets beholding the lighted windows and hearing the sounds of music and joy within.  The sounds but intensify his own sense of solitude, and he is fain to hurry away to his own room, lest he should have to confess to himself his own weakness...  Surely, there is a door out of this outer darkness.  Is there not an open door leading in to where there is light and joy? 

Jesus said that there is just such a door.  A door leading into where there is light and love and joy and peace.  What is it that Robert Frost said in his poem, “The Death of the Hired Man,” “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” But Jesus said that God is the heart’s true home and when you go there, God wants to take you in.  Augustine put it, “Oh God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.” It does seem to be true.  Jesus told the story of a young man who wasted his life in riotous living in a “far country.” One day he woke up to the fact that he was starving to death in the world he had made for himself, away from home, and he knew he was made for something far better than that.  He was in a pigpen, the story says, which was literally a “hell” of a place for a nice, orthodox Jewish boy!  When he found that he couldn’t stand it a moment longer, the New English Bible says, “Then he came to his senses and...he set out for his father’s house.” Years ago an old-time preacher preached on this story of the lost boy, and divided his sermon into three parts: “Sick of home”; “Homesick”; “Home.” The great German preacher Helmut Thielicke once suggested a Tenth Beatitude for us: “Blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.”

There seems to be a homesickness in the human heart, a God-shaped void that can only be filled by God.  This homesickness in the heart is more than merely nostalgia for a long-lost past.  It reaches way back to the Garden of Eden, where humankind first announced its independence from God, and tried to go its own way.  But every road away from God has led to a dead-end, sooner or later, and every door away from God has opened onto darkness.  There is only one door which leads home, said Jesus.  “I am the door.” And down through the centuries millions have found Him to be as good as His word. 

Some years ago a writer named Paul Engle found himself alone in Kennedy International Airport on Christmas Eve in the midst of a snowstorm.  As he walked past little groups of anxious, waiting people, he overheard the same phrase repeated again and again, “Home with the family for Christmas.” He mused upon that phrase and wrote, “This is only true of Christmas.  We do not try desperately to rush home for the Fourth of July.  Only Christmas has this live power of family attraction.  This is as it should be, for the original event on a cold desert night of conspicuous stars was a family affair.  (An Old-Fashioned Christmas, New York: The Dial Press, 1964, p.51)

In the prologue to the Fourth gospel, there is a verse which says,  “No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” (John 1:18) That phrase “close to the Father’s heart” can also be translated “in the family circle of the Father.” That is a provocative picture.  “In the family circle of God.” Jesus dwells therein, and He has invited us to come and be there with Him.  That’s the good news which the Fourth gospel proclaims.  G.  K.  Chesterton put it into a poem:

To an open house in the evening,
Home shall men come,
To an older town than Eden,
And a taller town than Rome. 

To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless,
And all men are at home. 

God grant.