Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 115 · April 25
At the Door
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
Many people know the painting of Jesus at a door. He holds a lamp and wears a long robe, and He stands on the step of a door that has no handle on the outside. Copies of it have hung in churches for well over a century, usually to show Christ knocking at the door of a sinner's heart. People have come to Christ through that picture, so this needs saying carefully: the letter this verse comes from was written to a church, by name, and read out to its members.
That church was in Laodicea, and Laodicea had money. When an earthquake struck the city, it rebuilt without asking Rome for help. The letter quotes the church's opinion of itself back to it: "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." Then comes the correction, a list of five things: "and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Everything Christ offers next is something they thought they already had: gold "tried in the fire," "white raiment," and "eyesalve, that thou mayest see."
Read verse nineteen first, because it sets the tone for the knocking: "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." The rebuke comes from love. Then: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock."
So Jesus is standing outside a church with a full building and a healthy bank account, waiting to be let in. There is an echo behind the knock. In Luke, Jesus tells His servants to be "like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately." In the Song of Solomon, a woman lies half asleep and hears "the voice of my beloved that knocketh." In both places the household is at home, and it is night.
So the question is about a room you are already sitting in. How long has the knocking gone on, and what has been going well enough that nobody heard it? Do not answer that about anyone else in the building. Stay where you are for a few minutes and listen.
The promise is waiting on the other side of the door: "if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." He knocks because He wants to come in and share a meal with you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 115 is Faithful Even When (2 Timothy 2:13).