Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from our Gospel lesson (Luke 13: 22-30) read earlier.

Where do you plan to eat lunch at noon? If you plan to go to a local restaurant, you probably hope to be seated and served within a short time. You probably don't plan on making a reservation. But imagine that you when you go to your favorite restaurant, the restaurant is full of people from across town, across state, even from the other side of the world. They have all made reservations, and will be seated and served. You're left outside. Imagine still further, that all the other restaurants within driving distance are closed, as are the grocery stores, and the pantry and refrigerator at home are empty. All you can do is stand outside the restaurant, looking through the window at all the tasty, hearty food that is being served inside. Crisp, fresh salads, the finest meats and vegetables, the best breads and drinks, a luscious dessert table waiting to the side.

If you can imagine his scene, you might understand and experience, to a very small degree, the deep sense of disappointment felt by those on the outside of God's Kingdom on the Last Day. In fact their disappointment is infinitely greater than missing a meal at a local restaurant. Their loss is so grave that they weep and gnash their teeth (Bahn, Concordia Pulpit Resource, 1998).

In our text, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, to allow Himself to be sacrificed so we who trust in Him will not be left on the outside looking in. Someone comes to Jesus with an abstract, hypothetical question and asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"

Jesus will not permit anyone to be a spectator at the drama of salvation. He will not allow humans to distract themselves with abstract, theoretical questions like "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" Such theoretical questions put off repentance and do not lead to faith. Jesus' answer is therefore not a statement, not a direct, abstract answer, but a warning: STRIVE. Make every effort. Strive to take up God's call in your heart. Realize your own sinfulness, repent, and realize your need for a Savior. Strive now before it is too late. Strive now before the door is shut forever on those who claim a historical knowledge of Jesus but have not been moved to repentance and faith by Him and in Him. (Franzmann, 1971).

This striving is easily misunderstood by our sinful natures. We are prone to misunderstand these verses and think that Jesus is saying we should somehow earn God's favor by being more moral, follow the 10 commandments better, to earn salvation through our personal efforts. But the emphasis here in Jesus' words is not actually on our own striving, but on the door, the narrow door. In John 10: 7 Jesus clearly states: Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door for the sheep. The struggle, the striving, the effort that we are making is not to earn God's favor through our efforts and works, but to struggle with our repentance. Just a few verses before our Gospel text in Luke 13: 5 Jesus had said unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Too many Christians view this repentance as a once-in-a-lifetime or occasional event. But Luke had two ways to say this in the original Greek. One way would have meant "repent once sometime in your past, or you will perish." The second way would mean "repent and keep on repenting as a habit, frequently, daily." Luke chose to say repent this second way. Jesus is saying "repent, keep on repenting, daily, as a habit, turning to me for forgiveness." This is the effort, the striving we are called to by God's Word in our text.

This striving is hard. We don't like this repenting. If repentance is ever easy for you, then you need to consider whether it is actually repentance. We like to think of ourselves as decent, ordinary chaps, and according to worldly standards most everybody in here is decent and well-intentioned. But God knows our hearts. He knows how we covet. He knows how we fail to love our neighbors. He knows how we fail to love Him and His Words of repentance and new life in Jesus. This striving is hard. We don't like this repenting. We like to think of ourselves as independent, not dependent on anyone or anything. But here we are, dependent on Jesus alone as the narrow door, the only one we can turn to as a means of entering into the heavenly banquet He has laid out for us. Only because He made his way to Jerusalem, to the cross, are we able to receive the great gift of that heavenly banquet with Him. Only because He has taught us this way of repentance and trust can we be in His presence, both now and in eternity.

"Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" Such theoretical questions put off repentance and do not lead to faith in Jesus. Jesus again warns the unrepentant with the words "We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets". Did you notice what they didn't say? They didn't say "we believed in you". They didn't say: "we believed that you were truly the Messiah, the Son of God and Son of Man." They didn't say: "we trusted you to save us." They said "you taught in our streets." They didn't say: "we invited you in to teach us in our homes." To those who only know of Jesus but do not trust in Him, his sacrifice for us, there will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth when Jesus says "I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!"

The door is narrow.   It comes only through Jesus. A direct answer to the abstract, theoretical question posed to Jesus is "too few will be saved." Those who only want to consider Jesus in the abstract, who refuse to repent, personally and life-long, will be left outside. But many will come. As in our Old Testament and Epistle texts, verse 29 of our Gospel text shines through as the Gospel ray of hope. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. God's Word and sacraments brought repentance and faith in Jesus to the lives of our spiritual ancestors to the east, west, north and south. The Holy Spirit in turn led those spiritual ancestors to share Christ's Word and sacraments with us, leading us to repentance and faith in Him. This ongoing, lifelong struggle of repentance and faith is the very character of the lives of all baptized followers of Jesus. On this Education Sunday, we celebrate our God-given privilege to share this message of repentance and Jesus with our children and grandchildren. We often don't know how the Spirit will use us.

When a team of Christians visited Stavropol, Russia in 1994 to begin distributing Bibles, one of the locals told them of a warehouse that held many boxes of Bibles. These Bibles had been confiscated by Stalin's men in the 1930's when Stalin was sending Christians to the gulags (prison camps). Amazingly the Bibles were still there 60 years later. So the volunteers and locals decided to distribute them. Among the people who showed up to help load the truck was a young agnostic man who simply wanted to earn a wage for the day. But soon he was gone. When a team member found him, he was crying, sitting in a corner reading one of the Bibles from a box. The Bible he had picked up from the hundreds there had belonged to his grandmother. She had been persecuted for her faith, but no doubt had prayed for her family, probably even for this grandson. Now the Spirit was using her Bible to bring him to repentance, to bring him to the narrow door, to bring him to Jesus (Dennis DeHaan, from Concordia Pulpit Resources, 1999).

Let us pray: Dear Jesus, you are our narrow door. You gave your life for us. Grant us daily repentance and continuing trust in you and your work. Strengthen us so that we can share your message with our children and grandchildren, so that we can all share in your heavenly banquet. Amen.