I recently finished reading Dallas Willard’s book The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. Willard is the kind of writer that leaves you saying, "That makes so much sense." But I was struck by an illustration he used toward the end of the book regarding William Holman Hunt’s famous painting, “The Light of the World.” Hunt was a famous Victorian artist and founder of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement. In the painting, Christ is holding a lantern and knocking at a door. I had always heard the explanation that this was Christ knocking at the door of the human heart asking for entrance. But Willard put a whole new twist on it that really speaks to us as a church.
But first, let’s go over the painting and see some of the rich symbolism there. As you have probably heard before there is no handle on the outside of the door. The reason is that even though Christ desires to come in, he never forces his way in. He must be invited, and the door must be opened from the inside. The decision is ours as to whether he will be allowed in or not. The hinges in the picture are rusted and the bolts are broken. The door is held in place only by vines, which shows that the door has never been used. Jesus is holding a lantern, which points to the fact that he is the light of the world. Outside, there is a neglected garden overgrown with weeds, fruit trees which have not been pruned, and a crop which has been lost because of lack of tending. There is fruit that has fallen on the ground near the feet of Christ, symbolizing Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, and that mankind has fallen from God. There is a bat above the door, a nocturnal creature which loves the night, and it is dark outside, pointing to the truth of the Scripture which says, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).
I saw this picture in St. Paul’s Cathedral when I went to London recently. Below the picture in the cathedral are these words concerning the door on which Christ is knocking: “It is fast barred; its bars and nails are rusty; it is knitted and bound to its stanchions by creeping tendrils of ivy, showing that it has never been opened.”
There is so much more, but as we see this painting, and especially as we read the scripture which says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock,” we need to ask some questions. The first question we ask is: To whom is Christ speaking? I had always thought that Christ was speaking to individuals, and the door represented each individual human heart. He was knocking because he wanted to come into our hearts and lives. But let’s consider the context. To whom is Jesus speaking in Revelation 3? He is speaking to the church Imagine it He is asking for admission into his own church. It is the church which has closed the door on him and never answered his knock.
This is particularly meaningful to me because of a very unpleasant experience I had as the pastor of another church. I was only there one year and a half. When I preached a series on the Apostle’s Creed they asked me where I got “that stuff.” In the middle of a series of sermons on the book of Philippians, they literally asked me to stop preaching from the Bible, and that is when I decided to leave. The interesting thing is that in the sanctuary, beside the pulpit, there was a very large picture of Christ knocking at the door. On my last Sunday in that church I paused during the sermon and looked at the picture. Then I turned to the church and said, “There are two things I notice about this picture of Christ knocking at the door. The first is that the door is still closed. The second thing I notice is, he is still knocking.” Every Sunday the church saw Christ knocking at the door, but instead of the door being opened, there were vines and weeds growing around it.
Someone is knocking at our door.
The second question we must ask as we view this painting is: What is his purpose? He has stated his purpose in the scripture that reads, “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). Christ is asking admission into the church that he might fellowship with us. He will come in to eat with us and spend time with us. That is what he is wanting. He wants to be with those he loves. But make no mistake about it, he does not come just sit around and have a tea party. His purpose is to come into the church to invite us back out into the world.
And that is why the door is shut. The church is afraid. It is frightening out in the world. The people out there prefer darkness to light. There is evil. There is darkness. There are dangers. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. But the lantern which Christ holds in the painting is a seven sided lantern, representing the seven churches of Revelation. He is calling them to be the light of the world. The word for church in the Greek is ekklesia. It literally means "the called out ones." The church is being called out by Christ into his world. Dallas Willard says, “It is to people in the church that Christ calls, and what he is offering is a special fellowship they do not now have. Christ is really out in the world, where we have not yet had the courage to follow him fully. Only ‘outside’ is great enough for him. But still he knocks at our little door and invites us to invite him in. If we do open the door he will come in and share with us, even though he will, in his greatness, find our little church — so very necessary to us — too small and confining. He especially wants to do this because those in the church are, generally speaking, the very ones who are best prepared to freely receive him and cooperate with him in his vast purposes for humanity and this world.”
It is easy to think of Christ being in the church. It is not so easy to think of him being in the world where there is so much evil. But he can never be satisfied to remain only in the church. Do you remember when Solomon built the temple? It was one of the wonders of the ancient world, covered with gold and exquisite carvings. But Solomon realized that the biggest and most beautiful building on earth could not contain God. After he had built the great temple, he said in his prayer of dedication: “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built ” (1 Kings 8:27). Christ visits the church building, but it cannot contain him. He lives in the world — just as we do. We were meant to live in the world, and mingle in the world, that we might be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
So often we have referred to scriptures which say that we are to keep ourselves from “being polluted from the world” (James 1:27). We quote the scripture that says, “Come out from them and be separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17). Consequently, we have hidden in the safety of our churches and have kept our religion reserved for this place, while the world goes to hell. In fact, when it comes to separating ourselves from people, the Bible says we should separate ourselves from certain people inside the church, not outside. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11).
When the Bible talks about us being polluted by the world, it is not talking about the people of the world, but the sin of the world. The difference in our lives should not be our appearance, or prudishness. We shouldn’t think of being infected by the sin of the world as one would catch a cold. No, the difference between our lives and those who do not know Christ should be in the way we love; the way we forgive our enemies; the sacrificial style of our lives; the way we treat our marriage partners and children; the way we love each other inside the church. If we do not love each other in the church, how could the world possibly believe that we will be able to love them?
We are not to be in retreat in our holy huddles. Jesus is calling us into the world. Where is Jesus? He is standing in the darkness and bringing his light to it. He is not afraid of the darkness. Christ is in the world he loves. He is where the people are. He is on the streets Saturday nights. He is in the bars. He is at the parties going on around town, just as he was in Jerusalem. He is not afraid to be there and neither should we, because he is there not to join in some of the things they do, but he is there to make a difference in their lives. This is his purpose. Where is Jesus? He is at your work place. He is at school. He is on the golf course. He is everywhere there are people. He is there because he loves people and he is wanting them to allow him to come in as well.
Someone is knocking at our door.
The third question this scripture raises is: What should be our response? Our response should be to kick the door down, so that it is never able to be shut again. Our response should be to hack the weeds and vines and run into the world where God lives. We should bring God’s light into a dark world. We should be at work in God’s field. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Luke 10:2). Imagine a farmer with a field ripe for harvest, but he doesn’t want to go out and work in the fields Imagine lights being hidden under bushels Imagine salt that never gets out of the shaker Imagine a church that never gets into the world to make a difference It is good and necessary for us to be here together with Christ, but we must not fail to take the next step. Jesus said he came to seek and save the lost. Shouldn’t we be doing the same?
We need to invite Christ in and spend time with him. And when we go from the church into the world we want to make sure we are not charging out on our own, but that we are going with him. We cannot stay huddled in here, but neither can we go into the world, while never having spent time with Jesus. Part of the reason that people fail to go out into the world is that they do not spend time knowing Jesus and catch his heart for the world. If you have not grown to love Jesus, then you have no desire to share Jesus. If you do not understand that people are eternally lost without Christ and in eternal peril, then you see no reason to attempt to rescue them. If our needs are more important than the needs of the people in the world then we will never go. If it is all about us then we will never have the desire to go.
Mother Teresa wrote about an encounter with a man of the world. She says, “An important public official of my country once asked me, ‘Mother Teresa, you say you pray for me. Tell me the truth: don’t you want me to become a Christian?’ I answered him, ‘If anyone has something they value a great deal, that person is very likely to want his or her friends to share it. I am convinced that faith in Christ is the best thing to have in the world. I would like for all to know and love Christ at least as much as I love him. Obviously, I would also like for you to know and love him.’”
Why did Jesus Christ come into the world? Because God needed to come into the world as a person so that the people of the world would know what God was like and hear that he loved them. Why is it important for the church to go into the world? Because God needs real people to go into the world so the world will know what God is like and hear that he loves them. Just as Jesus was the incarnation of God, so we are the incarnation of Christ to the world. We are his body. Because the light of the world lives in us, we are the light of the world. God always works through people.
Mike Yaconelli tells the story of the parable of the Lighthouse: “On a dangerous sea coast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little life saving station grew. Some of the members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life-boat crews to do this work. The life-saving motif still prevailed in this club’s decoration, and there was a liturgical life-boat in the room where the club initiations were held. About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick and they messed up the beautiful new clubhouse. The property committee soon met and had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside. At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members, however, insisted upon life-saving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But these were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life saving station down the coast. They did. As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet, another life-saving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown ”
Someone is knocking at our door, and he is saying, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15).
Rodney J. Buchanan
September 8, 2002
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
