I enormously enjoy reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles series of books written by an author called Bernard Cornwell, which has been renamed the Last Kingdom series after the title of the first book of the series. I’ve also enjoyed watching — it’s set in the late 9th century, early 10th century in England, when groups of Danish Viking raiders were crossing over from Scandinavia to the east coast of England and trying to establish a kingdom here. It’s called the Last Kingdom because at that time there wasn’t England — it was four separate realms, and Wessex was the only kingdom left that was not under Danish occupation. I’ve also enjoyed the entirely fictitious television series set at the same time with the not desperately imaginative title of Vikings.
What both of those series of books and TV programmes have in common is that the lead character is somewhat torn with regards to his identity and his allegiance. In one case it’s because he was born Saxon but raised as a child by Danes, and therefore exposed to the cultures and upbringing of both. In the other case it’s because the lead character is very much a Viking, but kidnapped and kept by a Christian monk whose teachings, ideas, and words got under his skin and intrigued him to the point where he couldn’t quite stop thinking about it, and therefore couldn’t quite decide where he wanted to be.
In both cases those tensions come out in what they are trying to grapple with as to the sort of afterlife that they want. Do they want to die a Viking and go to Viking heaven, or do they want to die a Christian and go to the Christian heaven? And you watch them wrestle with that tension. With what identity do I want to breathe my last? Into what kind of heaven do I want to proceed?
Now, you and I will never face the choice of whether to die a Viking and go to Viking heaven — I can assure you of that. But behind that tension arise some really interesting questions that we do need to think about. Like, how many heavens are there? Is it the case that for every different race, culture, and religion there is a different heaven, and the people who adhere to that religion or come from that culture go to their heaven while we go to our one? Or is there only one heaven for everybody? And if you think there are lots of different ones and you just go to the heaven of the group you’ve chosen to attach yourself to, does everybody then go to a heaven of some sort? Or in those various systems are there different gradations, different levels, different tiers — where you could go to heaven, or you could go to somewhere that’s kind of okay but not as much fun, or you could even go to some version of a hell? Or if you think there’s only one heaven for everybody, does everybody go there? Or does hell exist for some? And if not everybody goes to heaven, how are the numbers tilted? Is it the case that the majority of people go to heaven but a tiny proportion — the ones who are really, really, really, really wicked — go to hell? Or is it that the majority of us will be in hell and only the real saintly few get to go to heaven?
They’re all really interesting questions, and you’d love to know that Jesus was asked pretty much exactly that. If you have a look in Luke 13, verse 22, we discover that Jesus went through the towns and villages teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem, and someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” And so Jesus tells the parable that I’ve just read out, that we’re going to look at to answer that question.
As he does, he addresses two areas. He addresses the area of who gets into heaven — both how many people, and exactly who. But he also addresses the area of what it’s like when you get there, or what it’s like if you’re outside and not able to get there. In other words, the story he tells addresses all those kinds of questions. And all that Uhtred son of Uhtred, or Ragnar Lothbrok’s son, really had to do was read Luke 13 and all their questions would have been answered. But we’ve got Luke 13, and it’s going to help us navigate some of these kinds of questions that go around our minds from time to time.
So I’ve got five headings for us as we work our way through this parable.
1. Lots won’t be there
Verse 24: “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”
So there are two doors through which you could go — a narrow one and a wide one. The narrow one is the right one to choose, but because it’s the narrow one, it tells you that the path to life is not the one that will look like and present itself as the mainstream and obvious choice. You have to consciously go through the not-so-obvious option.
It reminds me of some words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7. Lots of people say that they don’t know much about the teaching of Jesus but they love the Sermon on the Mount, so here’s a bit of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says: “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.”
Many will try to enter and not be able to. Why? It’s not that the gate is narrow and they’ve overeaten and so they can’t fit — no, that’s not it. Jesus tells us why they won’t be able to enter, because we have to just keep reading. “They will try to enter and not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’” They won’t be able to enter because the door will be shut, and then it will be too late.
And if we read the other teachings of Jesus, it’s clear that the door closes either for us personally when we die, or globally when Jesus returns. If you haven’t entered when you die or Jesus returns, then the door is closed and it’s too late. And so lots won’t be there.
2. Those who know Jesus will be there
Why are they shut outside? Why can they not come in at that point? Well, let’s keep reading. “You will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’” That’s the problem — Jesus doesn’t know them.
Now at this point people will try and claim that they did know him. Verse 26: “You will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’” Do you remember, Jesus? Once you came to our town — you and we knew in advance you were coming, we put the bunting out, everyone had the day off school, and we lined the streets to wave and cheer. You might remember me — I was in that crowd. I did know you. Or my cousin went to school with you. Do you remember him? Eli, I think — you were in the same set as him for geography, history, and maths. We — you did know me. I don’t think we ever did sleepovers, but certainly we crossed paths.
To which Jesus will reply, verse 27: “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, you evildoers!”
What counts is not knowing of Jesus, not knowing about Jesus, but having a relationship with him. Not having a distant connection with Jesus, but having it where he knows you and you know him.
And many today, tragically, when that moment comes, will say very similar things to the people in this story. “Jesus, I learned about you in Sunday school — that must count.” “I went to church.” “I was baptised.” “We had the children baptised.” “I was born in England — England’s a Christian country, isn’t it? Surely that counts for something.” To which Jesus will say: “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers.”
What matters is knowing Jesus — knowing him personally. So: lots won’t be there; those who know Jesus will be there.
3. Lots will be there
If lots won’t be there, it would be easy to think that heaven will be half empty. If knowing Jesus is the one thing that matters, it’d be easy to look around at your friends, work out how many of them seem to know Jesus, and conclude that heaven will be a poorly attended disappointment — that most won’t be there. That heaven will feel a little bit like one of these fake Lapland theme parks they try and open at Christmas time when there isn’t any snow, and you end up queuing for hours to park in a muddy car park to see a couple of miserable reindeer. Heaven will be a little bit like that — you’ll queue for hours, and it’ll be a huge disappointment when you get there, and actually hardly anybody else will have bothered to turn up.
Not so. Heaven will be really well attended.
All the famous figures from Old Testament history — they’ll all be there. Verse 28: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God. But not just them — crowds from all over the world. Verse 29: “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
This is a figure of speech that was often used by peoples of the East in this period of history, in their language, where you use two extremes as a way of speaking of everything in between as well. So for example, in one of the Psalms it says that God’s name is to be praised from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same. That doesn’t just mean that you have two church services — at sunrise and at sunset — when you gather to praise God, as if you don’t need to bother in the middle of the day. It means from the very beginning to the very end of the day, and everything in between — every moment of the day is a good time to praise God.
So here, “from the north and south, east and west” — not missing out the people in the middle — it’s a way of saying everybody. People from everywhere. Heaven will be cosmopolitan. Heaven will be packed. People of every nation on earth, people of every language, will be there in huge quantities.
So that’s how many will be there, and who will be there — lots won’t, all who know Jesus will, but lots will.
4. Inside, it’s a feast
Verse 29: “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
This is one of the things that was tempting to put some of those characters in those dramas off the idea of the Christian heaven. They assumed the Christian heaven was boring, and if you wanted a feast you had to go to Valhalla.
Actually, a consistent picture in all the New Testament of the kingdom of God is of a feast. In fact we’ve thought about this a few times in recent weeks. We thought about the miraculous catch of fish in John chapter 21, and I talked then about how that is a foretaste of the feast that will be spread — that we will share with the Lord Jesus himself when he returns. Then a couple of weeks ago we thought about a parable in Matthew 22, when the kingdom of heaven is likened to a royal wedding banquet, and how we are invited to the banquet of all time where the food and everything is entirely provided for us to enjoy.
To be in God’s kingdom is to enjoy the feast of all time — with good food, with good company, a good time had by all, and with no pain or suffering ever to spoil it.
Inside, it’s a feast.
5. Outside, it’s agony and regret
Verse 28: “There will be weeping there and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.”
Agony and regret. Agony — we get that in the weeping. Children cry sometimes; adults cry. But sometimes adults weep — it’s different. When adults weep, it is agony to watch, because of the depth of the pain that is coming out. Deep grief and deep pain. And many of you have wept and know just how painful this is — deep grief, deep pain.
Sometimes people say to me, “I want to go to hell when I die because all my mates will be there.” To which the answer is: they may be there, but if they are, they won’t be your mates. If it’s mates that you want, you want to be at the feast, not outside — because outside is the place of pain, of agony, of weeping.
Agony and regret — regret that comes from the gnashing of teeth, or grinding your teeth in despair. That you can see all the fun through the window. All the people that you admired — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, there they are. All the slightly geeky Christians that you despised and looked down on — there they are. All the people that never wanted to do anything fun with you on a Sunday morning because they insisted on making church a higher priority, and you thought they were rather boring and you just looked down on them — there they are, inside. And there you are, outside. One of the most painful aspects of hell will be that you can see the party going on in heaven whilst you are excluded, thrown out, can’t join in.
It’s like there’s one-way glass between heaven and hell. The people in hell can see what is going on in heaven, and the regret comes that they had the chance to join them and didn’t take it, and now it’s too late. But the people in heaven do not have to be aware of the fact that there are people who are not there, because nothing about anything will spoil the perfection of what God has now given them — including the chance to view through the window the other way.
Outside, it’s agony and regret.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the parable comes at the end: “Those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last.”
But actually the conclusion in terms of what we do with this story comes at the very beginning. Verse 24: “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”
Make every effort.
You see, the question we asked is in verse 23: “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” That’s a hypothetical, theoretical question. God, if I was to draw an infographic with different-sized circles to depict how big heaven was and how big hell is — if I was to shade those pie charts with different countries on earth and wonder how many from each continent — what would that infographic look like? Lovely theoretical questions that are really interesting to pursue.
But what Jesus does is he channels and redirects us to the question we should have been asking. So: “Are only a few people going to be saved?” His reply: “Make every effort to enter.” Don’t ask the question. Don’t focus on how many — focus on how can you be there.
Because to be in Jesus’ kingdom when Jesus returns is just wonderful, and it’s all by grace. It’s free. It’s given to us as a gift. You don’t have to earn your way in. It’s not that you have to be especially good — it’s a free gift that God wants to give you. And it is so, so, so, so good.
To be outside at that point — to be shut outside — is just agony. And many will try to enter at that point but not be able to, because they left it too late and the door is closed, and no amount of hammering and pleading will change things. Don’t let that happen to you. It doesn’t need to.
But many will be there — we could even say most will be there. It will be packed. And each person here today can be there, because the only thing that you need to gain admission is to know Jesus. Not to know about him. Not to have brushed shoulders with his church. But to know him and to follow him personally. And then that feast can be yours.