Jesus at the door

[AI translation] It is a great, happy event in the life of our congregation that 32 young brothers and sisters, our confirmands, have come to confess and receive Confirmation, to be received into the communion of the Communion Church. You are now surrounded by the whole congregation. It is for you that most of our prayers are now being offered before the throne of God, our love is being poured out to you, we want to shower you with our good wishes, and it is to you that the preaching of the Word is primarily addressed. If one wanted to illustrate the essence of this service of confirmation in a picture, one would have to paint it as it appears in this verse. Let us now imagine this Word in its physical reality: let us imagine a door, a closed door, inside which, who knows what mysterious destiny is shut away from the outside world. Imagine Jesus standing there, knocking, rattling the door, asking to be let in. And imagine that that door is the door of your heart and that behind that door is your soul, your private life. And seeing this picture before your soul's eyes, hear the Word, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock."Who is he who stands at the door? An old acquaintance, we have heard much of him. The whole Bible and all the preaching speaks of him: Jesus Christ! The visible personification of the invisible God on earth. The mysterious One who came from God in heaven to follow us into life on earth, who, as God, lived a whole human life among us. At the touch of whose hand the blind, the lame, the bowel-ridden were healed. At whose word the dead were raised. At whose admonition a storm of the sea was calmed, a legion of devils fled, and yet He did not defend Himself when bound, did not protest when crucified, allowed Him to be mocked and treated as the last of the evildoers. For it was precisely by this suffering and death that He paid the ransom for our sins, that He gave us in His blood shed on the cross a powerful antidote to the deadly poison of sin, a remedy that frees, cleanses, and obtains for us forgiveness of sins - Yes: that Jesus Christ, who then truly rose from the dead, rose from the rocky tomb, and now continues His redemptive work from the invisible world of heaven. Who is supreme over the visible and invisible world: this is the Jesus Christ, Who will be the Judge of the living and the dead, of men and angels, of earth and heaven: this mighty Lord, this mysterious One, and yet a familiar good friend, is the One who knocks at the door.
So where is Jesus now? For heaven is not a world beyond the stars, not an other-world, but the invisible world that pervades and carries our visible world, the divine world that flows into our human lives. So the fact that Jesus is now in heaven means that he is here, only here invisibly. The person of the living and powerful Jesus Christ is not beckoning to you from somewhere in the misty, distant past like an old memory, not sending his message from an uncertain heavenly world like the sun beaming down from hundreds of thousands of miles away, - but he is really here, he is present.
To make this mystery easier to believe, He also gives us an almost tangible assurance of His presence by saying of this bread and wine: 'This is my body, this is my blood! Jesus is here as naturally and as truly as the bread and wine of His body and blood are here on the Lord's table. And here now no one and nothing is important but Him! Don't be affected by this decorated church, don't be affected by the excitement of the festive atmosphere, don't be concerned now that your parents and the whole congregation have their eyes on you, but take note of the invisible but real presence of the Lord Jesus. His eyes are upon you as you confess Him and vow to follow Him! I interpret His word, He Himself says: "Behold, I stand at the door!" So where is Jesus now? At the door. Not at the door of the temple, from outside, but here, right at the door of your heart!
And what is he doing at the door? He says: "I am knocking!" The one who wants to go in there is the one who knocks. The whole Confirmation preparation was nothing but a repeated warning: listen to someone knocking at the door of your heart! Someone is asking for admission! And if your heart is beating faster now in the excitement of this celebration, it is not because it is not beating faster, but because someone is knocking urgently. The knocking means that it does not want to force its way in, it does not want to break down the door. He is not using any coercion. And he's not sneaking in. He is not a thief who breaks in. He doesn't arrest with a word of power, he doesn't conquer by breaking and smashing by force, but he knocks and waits. He knocks again and waits again. He knocks and waits until that door opens from the inside! He offers Himself, but leaves it up to us to decide: do we want to receive Him? Oh, if only the confession of faith and the vows you are about to make could mean for you that the door at which Jesus is now standing and knocking is truly opened!
Why is Jesus knocking, what does he want to do to us? He says: "If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will go in and have supper with him and he with me." It is a metaphorical expression of the intimate, intimate communion of life that the Prince of Life wants to have with us. It is a very practical thing. Jesus, before he wants to bring human lives into heaven, wants to bring heaven into the lives of men on earth. So He wants to penetrate into our hearts because He wants to take possession of them completely, to establish His reign there. The Christian life does not consist in imitation of Jesus Christ, but in constant obedience to Him. Christianity is not the sum total of a series of good works, but the lordship and dominion of Christ in our lives. It is not enough to follow Jesus Christ as a role model. It is not enough that, when we hear His knock, we address Him from behind the closed door of our soul with a few short prayers, or that we stretch out a few forints to Him on the grate in the form of some charitable donation. But: He, through His Holy Spirit, as a living person, must dwell permanently in the depths of our being, take full dominion, purify and guide our will, our instincts, and receive them wholly for the purposes of the kingdom of God. Yes: we must all decide under whose rule we want to live. One can bow to oneself and take orders from oneself by being ruled by oneself. Or he can surrender the final decision to certain passions, to power, to money. Or he can bow to fear of society and surrender control of himself to it. Or else: you can surrender to the lordship of Christ. Each person decides for himself who has the decisive say in his life. Christ asks to be forgiven because He wants to judge me, you, all of us. He wants my heart to surrender to His heart, my will to His will, my life to His life.
"If anyone... opens the door, I will go in to him," says Jesus. He comes into my thoughts, my feelings, my will, my actions, and pours out in me as divine power, blessing, inspiration, life. Many people think that we need God because we never know if we will find ourselves in a situation where we can lean on Him in our own weakness like a lame man on a crutch. Well: Jesus Christ is not a crutch to support our stumbling lives, but Lord, willing to take possession of us and use us. Jesus' power is not to be leaned on, but to be submitted to Him, to be redeemed in the joyful knowledge that I am free to do what He wants! That is why He knocks and that is how He wants to come into our lives!
Obviously, this admission of Christ is not settled once and for all by a profession of faith and a profession of vows at Confirmation. Tomorrow morning he will be at your door again, knocking. And whenever you face a decision in your life, such as getting married or choosing a career, he knocks again. He warns you: Don't decide without Me, decide with Me. You go off to school, to do your daily work, to go on an outing, to have fun, it rings again: Don't go without me, go with me. Pain, disappointment: again He knocks: do not grieve alone, I am here with you, pour out your heart before Me. Joy makes your heart beat: in this also hear His knocking! Call me your companion in joy. That's what this Word means: "I will go in and sup with Him and He with me." This "with him... and he with me": this is the communion of life that Jesus wants. So that we do nothing without Him or against Him, but everything so that I with Him and He with me. That is why I have always said and I say it again: do not see this confirmation as something that ends now, but as something that begins now. It is the beginning of the life that Jesus says: 'I with you and you with Me!
So come, let us open the door to Jesus knocking and let us all ask together:
Lead us, Jesus, and we will go with you.
Life calls us to fight,
Let us follow you,
Hold our hands, till we arrive.
Give us a strong heart, that we may be believers.
And, if we must bear a burden,
Our tongue will not complain,
though our way be rough, we come to you.
(Canto 434, verses 1-2)
Amen
Date: 20 June 1954 (Confirmation.)