The Christ Who Knocks
Center Image: The Light of the World, William Holman Hunt, ca. 1851; Wikimedia; Public Domain; additional art and collage by Juliette Pierce Kent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me. (1)
The Bible says that Jesus knocks on the door of each our hearts. He never forces his way with us, but stands outside the door that can only be opened from the inside.
We hold the key. But our Lord is patient and persistent in His love for us. He waits for us to invite him in.
When we invite Him in, however, we soon learn that he is not satisfied with sitting in the front parlor as merely a guest. He enters the whole house, and opens every closet and cupboard. He wants us to set a table where we can sit down together and share a meal.
In his wonderful book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis uses the metaphor of a house to illustrate this process:
“Imaging yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you know that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” (2)
The Lord has plans for us, that no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor mind has imagined. (3)
C. S. Lewis continues: “He is going to make good His words. If we let Him - for we can prevent Him, if we choose - He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a much smaller scale). His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said.” (4)
Jesus wants to transform us completely, from the inside out. Be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (5)
He asks nothing less than everything; that the whole of our life, our heart and our soul, be sanctified, raised up in light, and made new. We were not created for half-measures and compromises, but for perfection in His kingdom.
It is beyond us, of course. He sees how it is with us. So He knocks, and we answer; and we allow ourselves to be reordered and recast as children of the Kingdom.
References
(1) Revelation 3:20
(2) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
(3) 1 Cor 2:9
(4) C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
(5) Romans 12:2
Additional reference: Bishop Barron, The Christ Who Knocks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0vIMWx8tyI