Great Doors: The Art Department

A few years ago, I paid a visit to our Art Department at work. On my way out, partially distracted, I could not get the door to open. I pulled again at the door knob, for it to break off in my hand. After a few seconds it dawned on me that the exit was several feet away; the door through which I had tried to pass was in fact a painting of a door, with a handle glued on.

To my credit, the painting was the same colour and size as the real thing. I offered my apology to the artist, who seemed a bit miffed. I rather thought it the best compliment I might have paid him. Still, no lasting damage was done. I took a photo to mark the occasion; one may just see the real door to the left.

From the corner of my eye, the installation was truly a door. It had a handle, it was door-shaped, and it had a wooden frame around it. The chief difference between it and the real thing was that it didn’t lead anywhere. On Sunday morning, I read those words of Jesus from John 10:

I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture 

In other words, He is a fully functioning, albeit metaphorical, door: One may go through Him to some better state (‘saved’). In the very next verse, he warns against those thieves who will charge admission but offer no passage. Here’s the eternal question: Where are you going and through which door? If your answer to the second question is not Jesus Christ, the answer to the first is ‘nowhere’.