“He Uses the Door” Easter

Our Gospel today, about who uses the door and who doesn’t, put me in mind that Indiana Jones movie with Sean Connery. I tried to resist but I couldn’t. So bear with me. “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” may not be the finest film ever made, but man, it sure has some of the best lines. I recall the scene where Indy is rescuing his father from a Nazi fortress and crashes in through the window into the room where Sean Connery (as Dr. Jones Sr.) is being held.

No sooner does Indy pick himself up off the floor, than he gets smashed on the head by his father wielding a Ming Dynasty vase (which happily, turns out to be a fake). Indy is nearly knocked unconscious. As he struggles to clear his head, Sean Connery says with annoyance and surprise “Junior? What are you doing here?” Harrison Ford says “Uh, I came to rescue you, sir.” “Oh,” Dr. Jones Sr. says, “I thought you were one of those Nazis. Sorry.” “Uh, they use the door dad…” “Right,” says Sean Connery in that awesome Scotch accent, “so they do.”

Jesus has much the same problem as Indy in our Gospel this morning—although with this important difference: He’s not crashing in through the window. He’s using the door, although He’s come to rescue us, all the same, just like Indy. And all the same, just like Sean Connery, we’re smashing Him on the head with vases because we’re afraid He might be a bad guy or something. And as we’re doing our best to knock Him senseless, He’s pointing out, quite sensibly, that the Shepherd comes in through the door to the sheepfold. It’s the thieves and robbers who climb the wall or try the window. And we go, “Oh, right. So they do…”

But the people listening to Jesus at the time didn’t get the illustration or the point. Maybe if they’d seen the Indiana Jones movie, it might have helped, but somehow, I doubt it. I’m not sure it even helps us all that much to understand what Jesus is talking about. What is Jesus talking about here with this door stuff?

It helps, I think, to put this in context. We always snip this chapter out of John’s Gospel, the “Good Shepherd Chapter”. We let it float free of its moorings in the Gospel, and largely for this reason, we fail just as much as the original audience to comprehend it. Because this isn’t a happy little talk that Jesus has with His good friends. It’s not a bedtime story to make you sleep soundly.

Nope, this little chat about doors and thieves and robbers is part of a knock-down-drag-out argument the Pharisees are having with Jesus. It begins with hostility and ends with renewed efforts to stone Jesus to death. Catching a bit of that setting is really helpful in grasping what Jesus is saying.

This is really part of the aftermath of Jesus healing the man born blind in John 9. As you recall, Jesus healed the man by spitting in the dirt, making mud and rubbing it in the man’s eyes after which he could see perfectly, though he was born blind. And the Pharisees didn’t like this little stunt. It was unnerving. Happened on the Sabbath day too, which in their judgment made it illegal. Not just cheeky. It was against the Law!

And after they kicked the man born blind out of the synagogue, Jesus met the man and asked if the man believed in the Son of God. And the man asked who He is, and Jesus introduced Himself formally. And the man worshiped Him. And Jesus said that’s why He came: that the blind would see and those who see may be made blind. And the Pharisees heard this and said “What?! Are we blind too?” And Jesus said “If you were blind you’d have no sin, but now you say ‘We see’ so your sin remains…”

And that’s when He launches into His little story about robbers climbing the fence and Shepherds using the door. Jesus comes in by the door to His sheep and they hear Him and follow Him gladly. But all who came before Him were thieves and robbers because they didn’t use the door.

The Pharisees didn’t get that. Oh, they understood surely, that the Shepherd uses the door and robbers hop fences. But they didn’t get how that applies to Jesus and healing a man born blind and forgiving sins. Simply put, they didn’t understand what the door is that Jesus uses.

Do you know? What is the door that Jesus is talking about here? What is the door that the Shepherd uses to enter the fold and call out His sheep? Hmmm. Put that way, this simple text suddenly isn’t so simple anymore is it?

This is why you need to read it as part of John’s whole Gospel and John’s Gospel as a chapter in the entire story of Holy Scripture, which is the story of Jesus and His rescue of us from sin, death, and hell. The Pharisees are ticked because a blind man they have pegged as a bad sinner confesses Jesus as the Christ and the Pharisees, the religious elite, have denounced Him as a blasphemer and breaker of the Sabbath law.

In that context, Jesus’ illustration makes perfect sense. Sheep know the Shepherd. They know that healing, forgiveness, and life for sinners is the trademark of the Christ. That’s who He is, that’s what He does. Always. The Sabbath is a day for rest and re-creation. Jesus re-creates on the Sabbath and shows that He fits that template, the template Scripture has made of the Messiah, the Christ.

But Scripture says more of the Christ. Isaiah says that finally the Christ is the Suffering Servant who lays down His life for the sheep, who dies so that we may live and by His dying and rising to life again leads us into green pastures and still waters. All the prophets attest to this. And this is the door Jesus uses—the prophecies of the Christ recorded in the Old Testament. This is the entrance way to the sheep fold of Israel. And only the Good Shepherd fits through that door, like a key in a lock.

You know the shape of this door. You’ve always known it. It is shaped like a cross. Honestly, it is the door to death and hell. But Jesus, by taking this way, has disarmed the powers on the other side of the door, and has forced them to serve as portals to His kingdom of light, life, and peace.

So Jesus has Himself become the door, the way out of our prison of sin and death, the Way into the kingdom of forgiveness and life. Thieves and robbers always evade the cross. By ropes and ladders of Law they try to scale the walls or go in through a window. Jesus is Shepherd because He uses the door, the cross, and faith alone.

Jesus blazed this trail for you. It’s a rescue! So follow Him by faith alone, through the dark door of the cross, the door He has opened Himself. Because ropes and windows and works of the law won’t get you out of the devil’s fortress. Only the door of the cross leads you out of death, to life…

It’s a paradox. The thief comes to kill and destroy but he does it by offering ladders and windows which promise temporal life. Jesus beckons you to share in His cross, His dying, which looks bad, but actually gives forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus doesn’t go around sin and death. He charges right through. So, dark and deadly as this looks, it makes Him the Way, to life, more abundant than you have known or can imagine. So come on along. By Gospel Word and Sacrament, the door is open for you and the Peace that surpasses understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.