Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Matthew 7:13-14 NIV
When I read this the other day I thought, ‘they know about small gates and narrow lanes round here in North Yorkshire.’
Then I thought, reading this I bet people wonder why God made the gate small, and the road narrow, if that is the way that leads to life?
What is this gate, and what is this way, that leads to life?
Jesus said, “I am the gate.” (John 10:9 NIV)
Jesus said, “I am the way.” (John 14:6 NIV)
Christians believe Jesus is both the gate, and the way, to life.
That’s why the gate is small and the way narrow.
The way to all life is as small and narrow as a single human life, the life of Jesus Christ. That’s really narrow. That’s a specific and finite human life, within a time and place in history, and within all the limits and practicalities of a human body.
The small gate, the narrow way, is the life of a first Century Jewish carpenter turned itinerant preacher.
In the modern world we believe there are many gates, and many roads that lead to life, and to believe otherwise is destructive.
“Enter any gate, for many are the gates and varied the paths that lead to life. Don’t think there is only one gate and one way, that way is small and narrow minded and leads to destruction.”
Although perhaps we are a little confused, the other thought from the modern world is that truth actually is very narrow, for instance, science and technology deal in measurements that have to be accurate down to unimaginably small values, otherwise aeroplanes fall out of the sky, spacecraft miss their destination, vaccines don’t work, and X equals whatever.
You might think that truth is narrow in science but broad in personal beliefs, but then even the most seemingly tolerant are condemnatory about paths that take in proscribed prejudices or forms of extremism that lead to destruction. Perhaps there is in the modern consciousness a small gate and narrow path to which all other gates and paths must conform?
Come to think of it, when you get your change in a shop you want the gate to be narrow, a broad gate where you might get given more or less than what you are due wouldn’t seem very equitable either in retail or in life.
So is the gate small, and the path narrow that leads to life?
Or is that gate wide, and that path broad?
Colossians chapter 1 says of Jesus that he “…is the image of the invisible God”, that “…in him all things were created”, and that “… all things have been created through him and for him…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.”
Jesus did and said things that his disciples knew God did and said, he fulfilled all they knew about God from their scriptures, and yet was a human being like them.
The humanity of Jesus is small and narrow.
The divinity of Jesus is infinite and transcendent.
God the Son became God our brother.
The small gate, and the narrow way, open up into eternal life in this world and the next.
Some people see the smallness of the gate, and the narrowness of the path but not the transcendence, they imagine that their understanding and experience of Jesus is the only way he can be seen.
Others seeing the smallness of the gate, and the narrowness of the path, conclude that it leads nowhere, or at best to a very confined place.
But Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life”, if you have experienced anything of the way, the truth, or the life, then your feet have been on the narrow path.
God does not place a broad gate, and a wide road, on the way that leads to destruction, we do.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6
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