The THOMAS Web-Zine
January 2013 Issue 40
The Knock at the Door
An innkeeper opens his door to find a weary man with a heavily pregnant girl close to exhaustion. He dreads what they will ask him as his hostelry is bursting at the seams with lodgers. He sees something in the couple's faces and their presence to feel compassion so he offers them the best he could do: his stable. And the rest is history. So it could be said that the Christmas story started with that knock on a door.
Knocking on the door is a popular concept about Jesus. William Holman's painting titled "The Light of the World" (1853-54) shows the figure of Jesus preparing to knock on an overgrown and long-unopened door.
This painting illustrates Revelation 3:20: "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me"
The image grabbed the imagination not only for those Victorians but the concept still persists to this day.
This concept of 'Jesus as instigator and we as responders' does not appear in the main Gospels nor in the Gospel of Thomas. He is not knocking on the other side of the Door:
#94 He who seeks shall find, and to him who knocks it shall be opened
Note, "...and to him who knocks ..."; we are the ones that must knock on His door! Each of us has to find and open our own inner Door. Jesus is the Door and seeking is the Key. We need to continually seek our Door.
#2.2-3 Let him who seeks not cease from seeking until he finds;
Even when we find it we may still have problems. In my case the Door was blocked by a 'clutter' of boxes. These showed the fragmentation and distractions in my life which interfered with my seeking. Until that clutter was removed my Door was closed.
#75 There are many standing at the door, but the 'loners'are they who shall enter the marriage place.
When we persist and are fortunate to be in front of our Door we may be shocked by its' state: the hinges may be rusted, bolts sized, or the handle missing. This 'damage' is caused by our ahamkara: hinges rusted by pride, bolts seized with anger, or many of the other emotions, doubts, and beliefs that continually affect us.
This can be discouraging; are we back to square one? No. Our Door may fade or even disappear for a time, but it is always there. We need simply renew our commitment to seeking:
#92 Seek and you will find. But those things that you asked me in those days I did not tell you then; now I desire to tell them but you do not seek after them.
And when we return to our Door we may find sufficient improvements that we can open it and unite with the Divine Presence.
When the Door opens each of us will have our own particular experience of the Presence. No other will have that same unique experience which we will find difficult to articulate therfore unable to share it with others. Perhaps its best to be kept secret!
Over time perhaps hours or days, the joy of that first encounter will fade to become a faint background to our life; reality invades, suffering shatters, commitments overwhelm. The door however is always there, ready for us to re-open when our needs or longing demand.
So what can I wish for you in the coming year? It can only be: keep seeking and you will find.