The Door and the City (Luke 13:22-35)

Jesus is teaching in the towns and villages as he heads to Jerusalem. When someone asks Jesus if only a few people would be saved, Jesus tells them, "make every effort to enter through the narrow door". So Jesus essentially tells them not to worry about that, but to make every effort to enter through the narrow door. They are to make every effort to enter because the owner at some point will get up and close the door. Then some of his hearers stand knocking and pleading only to hear the owner say, "I don’t know you or where you’re from”. They say they ate and drank with the owner, and that he had taught in our streets. However, the owner says, ‘I don’t know you… away from me, you evildoers!’ (13:22-27)

So Jesus is determined to reach Jerusalem (13:22, 13:33). On his way he is on a teaching through the towns and villages. Someone asks if only a few people will be saved (13:23). Jesus answers saying essentially, ‘Don’t worry about how many will be included, rather make every effort to be included because one has to enter through a narrow door and at the last day many will be unable to enter (13:24–30). They claim to have shared table fellowship with him and to have heard his teachings. However, this was superficial at best because the owner will say, "away from me, I never knew you". There is no relationship there, no real knowledge and he refers to them as evildoers. Few in Jesus’ day would end up following the ‘suffering servant’ as Messiah. However, we have to realize that in the end a vast multitude gather which no one can measure gather around the Lord (Revelation 7:9-10).

Jesus goes on to say that there will be ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ when they see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with all the prophets in the kingdom of God and they are left outside. These superficial acquaintances with Jesus end up excluded from the kingdom and yet people come from east, west, north and south to take their seats at the feast in the kingdom of God. Some who are first will be last and some who are last will be first. This reversal in Luke’s gospel likely means that those last to hear about Jesus are entering first and those invited first, well may not enter at all. The insiders enter last if at all, but the Jewish outcasts, the Samaritans and even Gentiles are entering before those who were originally invited. For example, the ‘devout’ Pharisees knew of a coming Messiah, but they didn’t follow Jesus, the Messiah God actually sent. (13:28-30)

These Pharisees come and tell Jesus to leave because Herod wanted him dead. Evidently, Jesus is still in Herod’s domain and they want Jesus to leave their area. However, Jesus tells them to go back and tell Herod that he would continue to drive out demons and heal people until he reaches his goal.  Jesus is not afraid of Herod or of death, but God’s plan is for Jesus to fulfill God’s purpose in Jerusalem; his exodus! (Luke 9:31, 13:31-33)

Some Pharisees warn Jesus to flee from Herod, but Jesus responds with disdain by calling Herod ‘that fox’ (13:31-32). Herod wants to kill Jesus, but Jesus knows that it is God’s plan for him to fulfill God’s kingdom purpose by his death in Jerusalem. This will be according to God’s will and not that of Herod. Jesus is committed to God’s will, but his heartaches for Jerusalem. He cries out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (13:33-34). Jesus’ tears depict for us his lovely desire to gather Jerusalem’s children, is motherly care which he describes ‘as a hen gathering her chicks under her wings.’

Jesus weeps for Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and who stoned to death those sent to her. Jesus has longed to gather Jerusalem’s children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Has been willing all along to gather them, but Jesus says that they were not willing. Jesus came to ‘his own’ but they received him not' and yet those who did receive him, he gave the right to be children of God (John 1:11–12). God sent the Anointed Davidic Messianic King, but they refused him and therefore their house would be left to them desolate. The story ends with Jesus’ claim that they would not see him again until they say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (13:34-35)

Jesus’ warning here may seem a bit unreasonable. It may seem unfair to us for the householder to shut the door on some people and to protest that he never knew them. Yet, as Jesus goes about his mission, he has been holding open the gate of the kingdom and urging people to enter it. The door isn’t wide and one day the door will be shut, so the message it to be responded to because the door will not be open indefinitely. There will come a time when the door shuts and and then it will be too late. Jesus is the final messenger and if he is refused, there will be no further opportunity. If one fails to respond to Jesus’ call, and thinks because they once shared a meal with Jesus or heard his teaching, then they will be badly mistaken. It is dangerous to linger around the gates to the kingdom of God, only to discover that by not responding one ends up excluded.

Jesus uses the picture of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings to protect them. In a fire a hen will gather and shelter her chicks under her wings at the expense of their own life. After a fire a scorched hen can be found with live chicks sheltered under her wings. She gives her life to save her own. It is a vivid image of what Jesus longed to do for Jerusalem. This picture of the hen and her chicks is the strongest statement so far in Luke of what Jesus death would accomplish. Another threat to the hen and its chicks is the predator, particularly in this case the fox. Herod, the puppet of Rome, is a treat to the people and no king of the Jews. The Pharisees may have been secretly hoping to get rid of Jesus, wanting him out of their territory. But Jesus has a destiny to fulfill, so he will continue his work and bring it to completion according to plan in Jerusalem (9:22, 44; 12:50).

Jesus’ destiny, then, is to go to Jerusalem and die, risking the threats of the fox, and adopting the role of the mother hen who dies to save her little ones. But Jerusalem has a long history of rebelling against God, refusing the way of peace. Would Jerusalem avoid it own pending destruction or would they welcome Jesus as God’s Messiah? The story was an urgent summons to repent and to embrace Messiah Jesus. Jerusalem would reject Jesus, God's king and our savior. Jesus gives himself in our place and on our behalf, and we must enter through this narrow door. While this door remains open we are to do what Jerusalem failed to do. We are to turn in trust to Jesus who conquers sin and death by becoming the 'suffering servant' in the cross in Jerusalem on our behalf.