Luke 13:23-25 “ ‘Lord,’ someone asked him, ‘are only a few people going to be saved?’ He said to them, ‘Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and won’t be able once the homeowner gets up and shuts the door.’”

Many people came to Jesus with spiritual questions. “What is the greatest commandment? Who is my neighbor? How often do I have to forgive my brother? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? Can a man divorce his wife for any reason? Sometimes he gives a simple, straight up answer. Sometimes his answers don’t seem to fit the question very well. It’s not that the question was stupid. But the person was asking the wrong one. It is as though Jesus is saying, “Here is the question you should have asked, and here is the answer to it.”

We have a case like that in our Gospel lesson this morning. A man asks Jesus, “Are only a few people going to be saved?” That’s sort of a theoretical football to toss around, but what difference does it make? Will answering it change anything for anyone? The better question, Jesus seems to imply, is this: “Should I be concerned whether I will be among those who are saved?”

Notice how Jesus has turned the conversation from mere statistics, to the living, breathing humans in front of him at that moment. “You people, the ones listening to me, don’t make any assumptions for yourselves. You make every effort.” And here is why that is important.

The way into salvation–eternal life with God lived in his good graces–is a narrow door. It is as narrow as Jesus himself, who told his disciples, “No one comes to the Father except through me;” who warned his enemies, “I am from above…Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins;” who used this very picture for himself, “I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.”

Jesus’ picture of the way into salvation only though him is so tight, so narrow, that it makes us feel cramped and uncomfortable. Everyone knows someone, it seems, who isn’t interested in Jesus’ way. They have found a different path, or invented one themselves, that “let’s me be me.” There is no call to change, no sin to repent, no need to be forgiven. Perhaps they simply regard their eternal fate as uninteresting or unimportant. They sense no danger to their souls, so they live for today.

We may react by hoping Jesus wasn’t so serious about the “narrow door.” But do you know him to be in the habit of kidding about this sort of thing? What’s the use of pretending there’s no danger or ignoring it when it’s near? Why make no use of the solution when it’s easily available and free to use?

We have a tornado shelter in our garage. If the sirens are sounding, if the weather radar says it is practically on top of our neighborhood, if we can hear that roaring sound like a locomotive bearing down on our house, is that the time to get a snack out of refrigerator and start watching a movie in the living room? Is that the time to try a little anti-rain dance to turn the storm? Isn’t it time to get into the shelter, and hope your neighbors have the good sense to do the same? And if they don’t, does it help to pretend that they are just as safe eating popcorn and watching a movie while you are hunkered down in your shelter, and your homes are being scraped from their foundations?

Maybe there are more ways of escaping the tornado. There is only one way of being saved from sin and making it to heaven. Jesus is the narrow door. Outside of faith in his grace, his sacrifice, his forgiveness, there is no other way. But his way works perfectly well. The door may be narrow, but it isn’t locked. It isn’t stuck. It isn’t hard to fit through. He has opened the door. He even carries you through it, if you don’t squirm out of his arms. So let him take your through that door while it is open.