“Women, and children, and unsaved into the lifeboats!” Note in this cry the rescuer’s word “unsaved.” Those who did not know salvation and the assurance of the Kingdom of Heaven should be saved from the sinking vessel to await the opportunity for a profound event – being saved from one’s sins. That was the conviction of Scottish evangelist John Harper as he raced across the decks of the sinking Titanic.
Harper was a renowned evangelist who in 1912 was sailing the Atlantic on his way to pastor the illustrious Moody Church in Chicago. Since his wife had recently died, he now traveled with his only child, six-year-old daughter Nana. Having placed her in a lifeboat he refused a seat for himself, reserving yet one more place for another woman, child, or any individual who had not yet discovered the blessing of salvation. Surrendering his lifejacket to another man, he continued his crusade among the unsaved aboard the doomed ocean liner.
Four years after his death, at a conference in Hamilton, Ontario, the final moments in the life of John Harper became public. A man stood before the assembly and offered this testimony: “I am a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a spar that awful night, the tide brought Mr. Harper, of Glasgow, also on a piece of wreck, near me. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘are you saved?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I am not.’ He replied, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ The waves bore him away, but strange to say, brought him back a little later, and he said, ‘Are you saved now?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I cannot honestly say that I am.’ He said again, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ and shortly after that he went down; and there, alone in the night, and with two miles of water under me, I believed. I am John Harper’s last convert.”
The man who offered this testimony was only one of six people retrieved from the freezing waters of the North Sea by lifeboats, as 1,522 others, including Harper, died amidst the floating ice. We know for sure, that one of those rescued entered into the presence of Christ through a door held open by the evangelist.
The understanding that we are the door, a gateway, through which others come to know the saving grace of Jesus, comes to us from John 10:1-18. This is known as a “conglomerate” passage in which several motifs are used in tandem. The Fourth Gospel combines the Christological titles of shepherd and door. This treatise will restrict its focus to Jesus as the Door.
The earliest Jewish belief, shared by the Greeks, was that the firmament was a solid dome. When the door of the dome was opened God’s blessing could descend upon the earth, as one could also have a vision of the everlasting. This is serious ideology that far surpasses a concept that we are a part of Truman Burbank’s story, whose character was played by Jim Carrey, in the 1998 movie The Truman Show, whose tagline was “All the world’s a stage.” In Judaism the world is a stage, though not one of entertainment and spoof for the director is God Himself.
This is reflected in Jacob’s experience at Bethel and the stairway to heaven, when he declares, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Gen 28:17) Jacob was able to see through the door of the dome into heaven itself. Moses experienced this differently, for when the door of heaven was opened manna, the lifesaving food of the Exodus journey, poured forth. The desert wanderers reported, “Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; and he rained down upon them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven.” (Ps 78: 23-24) The door is one through which both you and I and the Deity can pass.
The evangelist John placed Jesus as the door in the context of shepherding. With this juxtaposition several prominent images emerge. It is a message that continues to implement the theme that through the door we gain access to God and encounter the blessings of God. In a comic strip that appears regularly in the Sunday newspaper, a man is greeted by his wife as he arrives home. He is obviously frazzled and exhausted, spent from the day’s demands. He offers this confession, “I tried to seize the day, but it fought back.” Life is often a wrestling match, overpowering us to the position that our shoulders are pinned to the mat, down for the count. It is helpful to remember that above us will always be the door to the kingdom and our hope for a new day in the morning.
Jesus is the door through which we find the blessings of life. He said, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (Jn 10:9) As the sheep pass through the gate to graze upon the green grass of the countryside, nourishing their bodies, we too look for the gate that will direct us on the path of spiritual nourishment. In Hebrew the phrase “come in and go out” means our daily comings and goings are peaceful and tranquil. It is here that we have the promise that life can be enjoyed if we travel through the door held open by the Good Shepherd. Michelangelo maintained this belief, “Do not fret, for God did not create us to abandon us.”
It is through Jesus that we gain an audience with God is underscored in the introductory words of John’s message. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, opening the door to tranquility. He said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice.” (Jn 10:1-3a) Then Jesus goes on to reiterate, “I am the gate for the sheep.” (7b) Only an honest person enters unapologetically through the gate. A self-serving individual attempts to sneak into the pen of the sheep, discovering that Jesus has blocked his way. Our belief in Jesus is the entranceway to salvation, placing us in the presence of God.
Entering through the gate or jumping over the wall is theologically defined by St. Seraphim of Sarvo (1759-1864), a Russian Greek Orthodox monk and mystic. He wrote, “God is a fire that warms and kindles the heart and inward parts. Hence, if we feel in our hearts the cold which comes from the devil – for the devil is cold – let us call on the Lord. He will come to warm our hearts with perfect love, not only for Him but also for our neighbor, and the cold of him who hates the good will flee before the heat of His countenance.” When we come to know Christ the coldness of our doubts is cast aside with an assurance of faith that warms our souls.
Though in the pastorate for a number of years, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, still harbored doubts about his faith and the assurance of his salvation. Five in the morning on May 24, 1738, he awoke and randomly opened his Bible, as was his custom, and read these words, “Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in this world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.” (II Pet 1:4) Yet, he felt no exceedingly great promises within his own spiritual state.
That evening he attended a Methodist meeting at Aldersgate Street in London. There he heard a layman reading from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to Romans, though we don’t know what section of Luther’s treatise was being read. Later Wesley recorded in his journal the transformation of his soul, “About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” The assurance that had so long eclipsed him had now shown brightly.
“I felt my heart strangely warmed,” has become the mantra of Methodism. It is the sensation that we all will experience when walking through Christ the Door into the spiritual realm of heaven.