If you were fortunate enough not to be dragged off of a
United flight kicking, screaming, and bleeding; perhaps you noticed that over
time all the airlines have been steadily decreasing the size of the seats and
the leg room from one row to another. It
has gotten so bad recently, that nearly everyone is uncomfortable. If the person in front of you reclines, you
get their head in your lap and your knees buckled to the sides, or thrust into
their back. Given this condition, airlines
have opted to offer a new product, the idea of “premium coach”, where they
upgrade the seat, and offer slightly more width and legroom once again for an
increase in price. For folks with a
smaller frame, the inconvenience of flight is a temporary one they will endure
to get from point A to point B. But for
the remainder of the American public, who start out larger, or wind up that
way, the inconvenience of flight is nearing pure health risk. Clots forming in legs due to the
uncomfortable positions flight causes; combine this with unhealthy eating, and
an increasing size, and it adds up to potential loss of life. Once the court systems realize this, I
suspect airlines will go back to larger seats, more leg room, and higher
prices. For now, First Class, is the
only escape.
And when you consider First Class, you find there are only a
limited number of seats, not everyone fits.
Not everyone will be allowed in there.
It costs more, so financial wealth is used as in invisible barrier. And general compliance with airline rules to
avoid situations of getting forcibly removed from an airline keeps the majority
of patrons from rioting and demanding better accommodations. Think of it, a smaller number of seats
available, using wealth as a general barrier to admittance, and willing
compliance from the inconvenienced add up to uncomfortable flights for the
masses, and reasonable accommodations for those with deep purses and
wallets. Is there a gospel equivalent?
Matthew records what Jesus was teaching in His Sermon on the
Mount in chapter seven of his gospel, picking up in verse 13 Jesus says … “ Enter
ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that
leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:” Jesus appears to equate the path to
perfection, the path to heaven, as a nearly exact opposite of airline
travel. But isn’t that a scary
thought? The parallels may still be the
same, it is easier to be financially wealthy on the wide path (money is still
an invisible barrier), general compliance or acquiescence of masses still
applies, and the mistaken idea that there is not enough room on the smaller one
still exists. From the perspective of
our God, the path or gate on the path, that leads to Christ is a small one, a
skinny one, and so few will find and pursue it.
On the other hand, the path, or the gate on the path, that leads to
destruction is a big old comfortable, wide easy to pass through gate. Many will pass through that, because it is
easy.
Jesus continues in verse 14 saying … “Because strait is the
gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that
find it.” Jesus describes a model that
in airline terms would have the first class passengers, scrambling to get into
coach; instead of the entire plane load of passengers having envy and hoping
for a spot in the wider first class venue.
From a gospel point of view, the skinny path is the one you want to be
on. The big old highway, is the one you
want to avoid. Jesus takes this analogy
just a bit further adding a twist, Jesus says that the path is so skinny “few
will find it”. At least in an airline we
know where things are, it is easy to see.
From the gospel analogy, not so.
The easy path is the wide path, and the one folks seem to trip over
themselves jumping onto. The path you
want is so skinny, that few even find the thing, let alone decide this is where
they want to travel.
Now within this analogy, Jesus never discusses how hard it
is to travel the skinny path. It is
skinny only because few find it, and few travel it. But the life of the ones who do, are not said
to be difficult, or tortured, or persecuted.
We conjure all that stuff up in our heads, because we believe it just
must be difficult to find Jesus or perfection.
After all we have tried it ourselves, and it has never been easy to
achieve any form of perfection, even in a limited venue like a hobby, or
interest we have. Attempting to play the
piano perfectly for example, just seems impossible even for the best musicians
in the world. So we come to accept that
it is the imperfections, the nuances of where we apply emotion, and where we
restrain it, that make us unique, and interesting, and worth listening to. Technical perfection, does not even equate,
to musical perfection.
We come to accept the idea that perfection is not possible
because we have never been able to achieve it in ourselves. Therefore, if perfection is not possible,
then God must not require it. God is
forgiving after all. He forgives
whatever we do. So perhaps where it
comes to salvation, God simply “winks” at our sins and intends to save us no
matter what we do, or how often we do it.
The wide path emerges within the Christian faith, of nearly every
denomination. History proves out that
perfection in humans just does not appear, so history and science seem to
support our ideology. The Bible bears
out that even some of the worst sinners are on the to-be-saved list. David, who carries the distinction, of being
a man after God’s own heart, committed some of the worst sins there are. Perhaps even the scriptures support the notion,
that perfection is simply not a requirement God carries, as He knows none of us
are capable of it. And to an extent
there is logic in this kind of thinking.
But it is wide path thinking. It
is “easy” to adopt and follow, but it is “harder” to live than one might expect
at first glance.
The problem with our wide path thinking is that it leads to
destruction, not the destination we had in mind. The problem with our wide path thinking, is
that the premise is upside down. To
accept imperfection in a spiritual context, is to accept some sin we commit,
and are powerless to stop. That sin
however, is not really a source of joy, and fulfillment. That sin, no matter what it is, provides a
momentary distraction from the decades of pain and self-destruction that come
with it. We have blindly accepted the
devil’s marketing campaign that sin is good, and being good is boring. Wrong.
Sin is pain. Sin is not fun, or
cool, or exciting. Sin is pain, pain
that leads to death. It always has
been. Sin sits on one side of the cause
and effect equation, pain and death sit on the other. They are inextricably linked. Sin leads us to hurt those we love, those who
love us, and our God. The waves of pain
we start with even a single sin, expand out across the water, until nearly
everyone is encompassed by them is some form or fashion. It is sin, that our Lord is trying to provide
us a way of escape from.
Our God does not offer us forgiveness from sin, so we have a
get out of jail card to keep sinning. He
offers us forgiveness in the same hand He offers us reformation, and
re-creation. His goal is not to see us
keep sinning, because He wants us to get away from the pain and death it
causes. Our God is trying to get us off
the path to destruction, not pour gasoline in the engine to make us go faster
on it. There is a different road. There is a more narrow road, because it is
less popular, and fewer believe it exists.
Fewer travel it, because they place the real ideas of perfection within
themselves, instead of trusting to Jesus to see it happen within them. Jesus can work out perfection in you, you
can’t. You need to be saved from
you. That is not work you can do. That is work you must watch happen, because
you let Jesus do it. Narrow path
thinking. Less popular thinking. Less traveled, because few are willing to
believe it.
The road to perfection is not a difficult one of struggle,
failure, and disappointment. It is one
of joy, of relief, and heads to a destination where everything is perfect. There will be no sinners in heaven. Think about that for a moment. God does not wink at sin. He cannot.
He knows the pain and death sin brings.
God wants it exterminated for all time going forward. And God is not looking to exterminate you to
achieve that goal, only the sin within you.
That is work only Jesus knows how to do, but is only able to do it, if
you surrender and let Him do it. If
there is a fight to be had, it will be the fight to forsake our former ideas
about perfection, and allow Jesus to work His work within us, unimpeded by our
attempts to save ourselves. The narrow
road is not really hard, it is only less traveled. Think about that for a moment. It was never supposed to be our
responsibility to save and perfect ourselves, only to truly turn over our
salvation to Christ, and let Him save us from us.
If the narrow path is not hard; if it is easy; if it leads
to our salvation, and our perfection, why not jump on that one right away? The love of our Lord was not meant as an
excuse to sin, it was meant as an escape from our sin. Jesus did not come to earth to leave you in
the conditions of pain and death He found you in. He came to take you out of your conditions,
to re-create you from the inside out, to remove from you the diseases that
cause you pain. The entirety of the New
Testament show Jesus doing exactly this.
Not just the physical healings which were miraculous in themselves. But the much deeper miracles of changing who
people were, of putting them on the path to perfection, and bringing them along
on that path away from the former things, and on path to the better
things. The distance you move on this
path is not the important thing. The
fact that you are on the path is the important thing. Going through the gate of Jesus Christ, getting
Him to be responsible for making you perfect, as you learn to perfectly
surrender to Him. This is what salvation
and the love of God is all about.
This can only occur, between you and Jesus. The relationships around you, between those
you love and God, are not the same as the relationship you hold between you and
God. You do not get credit for having a
parent who really seems to understand the narrow path. Nor do you get credit for having a spouse, or
a child, who has it down. Where you are
with Jesus. What you understand about
Jesus. How much you trust Jesus to do
this, to see your salvation happen, to be the author of your perfection. This is all that matters. It is a one-on-one between you and Jesus
Christ. Nothing in between, nothing in
the middle. There is no intercessor
between you and Jesus Christ. Not your
minister, or your family, you stand one-on-one with Jesus with nobody else in
the way. He bids you to enter through
His gate, and let Him take from you the pain and death sin causes. He bids you to taste and see how good He is,
how easy the narrow road can be with Him in charge, carrying you across the
finish line. He bids you to let go your
burdens, and enter the Kingdom of God that has already come. To play with Daddy, until Daddy bids you
entrance to our final home in a place where only perfection exists.
And the Sermon was not over yet …
