The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. (Psalm 121:8 AMPC)
We recently had some significant remodeling done to the main entrance of our home. Actually, it was a complete rebuilding of our outer front (or storm) door. I inquired with the spouse of one of our retired clergy colleagues who just happens to be a master craftsman. He came by to assess and at my invitation, took on the challenge. Twenty hours or more later, the doorway was reborn. The beautiful red oak door you see pictured had been covered with black paint several years ago to match our shutters. But over time it began sagging terribly and couldn’t close properly. In fact, it had fallen into such disrepair that it wouldn’t close at all.
That’s when John stepped in and patiently began the process of renewing this fixture to its original glory. The picture doesn’t do justice to the beveled glass in each panel, or the rainbows it’s panes help to cast across our foyer and living room so many days. We soon discovered that this wonderful glass was part of our problem. The weight of the glass in the door had taken a toll over the years. Inadequate hinges had reached their limits and were giving way to the weight of the door. During the doorway resurrection our friend discovered castaways within one of the door panels as he repurposed the wood. Carpenter bees were beginning to tunnel in one panel with hopes of constructing a subdivision. Thankfully, those plans were thwarted. And now there is this magnificent portal, in and out of our home.
In her book, Night Visions, author Jan Richardson offers the following wisdom.
“The word threshold originally referred to the doorway leading to the place where the threshing of grain occurred. Beyond the entrance lay the place of separating the wheat from the chaff, of sorting and sifting, of beginning to call that which would become bread. John the Baptist used this image as he spoke of how Jesus would come to clear the threshing floor and gather the wheat. John’s words served as a vivid warning to the people to prepare, to consider whether they were ready to walk through the doorway toward the life to which Jesus would call them….
The thresholds of our lives serve as places to choose, to discern, to sort out what we consider important and where we feel called to go. We may find ourselves at a threshold by choice or by circumstance, arriving by our own design or landing there by events seemingly beyond our control. Whether or not it seems sacred at first, a threshold can become a holy place of new beginnings as we tend to it, wait within it, and discern the path beyond.”
We all face places, situations, relationships, challenges, and opportunities which can serve as the thresholds of our lives; the places of pausing, waiting, and discerning the doorways before us, where we hear Jesus’ call to go. Such times and places merit our time and attention.
As I pause in this threshold moment I notice that the first door into our home is also the last door to be closed on the way out. Coming in or going out of our home there is a doorway which is cruciform – shaped in the sign of the cross. I pause and notice the light its glass panels let in and the focus those panels bring; how they not only let me see a measure of what is on the other side, but also the way they help to frame the cross which holds them all together.
Jesus is a Master Craftsman who says, “I am the Door; anyone who enters in through Me will be saved (will live). (They) will come in and (they) will go out [freely], …” (John 10:9 AMPC)
May your going out and your coming in be marked by pauses in the thresholds of your life. May God help us to see how Jesus is calling us to make ourselves at home, in the doorway of his friendship – and calling us to walk into the world around us, with the confidence that
He is with us, “always – even until the end of all time.” (Matt.28:20)
In Christ,
Jon (the United Methodist)
photo credit – Jon Strother