Somebody Let Him In!
Embrace the Temporary Discomfort
There are two instances in scripture that visualize Jesus standing at a door and knocking. Most are familiar with the passage in Revelation 3 where Jesus “stands at the door and knocks”—the door of his own Church! The Lord is inviting Himself into a body that has grown fat and happy because of its own success and is blinded to it. It’s a sad and startling, yet too familiar, phenomenon.
Fewer of us may be aware of a parallel passage in Song of Songs chapter 5. If we read the book allegorically, the “Lover” is Jesus, and the “Beloved” is his bride—the Church, which is us. Jesus’ appeal here is more ardent than with the Laodicean church, where he conveys the subtle threat (promise?) of discipline. In Song, He is pleading to be brought in out of the dark and damp to once again savor the fragrant pleasures of her presence and affection, about which He has just extolled her (5:1). What’s the problem? She’s already in bed! She’s shed her street clothes and washed her feet, and frankly, getting up to answer the door would be an inconvenience and a burden.
To her credit, she comes to her senses once provoked by the Lord’s gesture of thrusting his hand through the latch-opening and springs out of bed, spritzes, and makes her way to the door, but it’s too late—He has withdrawn. It’s heartbreaking to watch her hear the Lord’s prompting and not instantly respond because it would create a temporary discomfort for her. Even with fresh memories of the delightful favors of the Lover (4:16-5:1), she has become temporarily complacent, offering too little, and too late once roused.
How very much like her we can be when Jesus beckons us and we don’t immediately respond because we don’t care to be inconvenienced, or we’re too busy. He’s not even calling us to follow him in this case; he’s pleading to be let into our most intimate places, with the promise to bring either love or feasting.
It is comforting in the Song narrative that the Beloved quickly comes to her senses and gets up, then pursues the Lover at significant personal cost (5:7), reminding herself in the process of how beautiful and, yes, desirable, He is. Happily, she is soon re-united with Him and bliss is resumed.
In Laodicea, we are left with a cliffhanger situation; will they let the Lord in or not? The major difference in this passage is that Jesus is disgusted with their complacent behavior and threatens discipline or even violent rejection if they don’t wake up (Rev. 3:16). We are left to write the ending of that narrative in our own hearts, minds, and lives. I’d rather identify with the Beloved than with the Laodiceans.
For my fellow “relics” reading this, I’ll end with a quote from a Paul McCartney and Wings song from the 1980s: “Do me a favor; open the door and let him in.”
