The Gatekeeper
Photo by Saish Menon on Unsplash
Who stands between you and God’s presence? What stands between you a right relationship with God? Who stands between you and heaven? Who is God’s gatekeeper?
A gatekeeper is someone who attends a gate or a passage and determines who goes through and who does not go through. A gatekeeper is someone who controls access.
Jesus spoke harshly to the Jewish religious leaders who saw themselves as the gatekeepers to heaven and to God. These men did not enter through the gate to heaven and to God themselves. And instead of showing the way to others as God’s ministers, they slammed the gateway closed in the face of God’s beloved children.
In Matthew’s gospel account, Jesus rebuked these religious leaders, saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:13-15, ESV).
Jesus was angry and indignant over the religious leaders of the temple system, and the religious systems of the day, who slammed the door to God and to heaven in people’s faces and did not allow safe passage.
In contrast, Jesus said that he is the doorway for his people—his sheep. In John’s gospel, Jesus proclaims, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” (John 10:9, ESV).
Jesus also said that he himself is the way to the Father. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, ESV).
Not only is Jesus the benevolent and Divine Gatekeeper, Jesus is also the gateway himself. We can fully and intimately enter into God’s presence, and into heaven itself, through Jesus showing us the way, and empowering us to go the way, into his presence and into his kingdom.
May we enter through the gate to God by our merciful and gracious gatekeeper—Jesus, and may we show others the way to Jesus as well as we live out our faith in our lives.
In Christ alone, Robbie
A Prayer For Guidance: “Go before us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name, and finally, through your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (#76, Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
Photo by Saish Menon on Unsplash
