Vigils Reading

CHRIST IS THE DOOR

From “Symbols of Christ” by Dom Damasus Winzen

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To pass through a door is an initiation and a consecration, because it

means to leave behind the past and to enter a new life. To the Romans of old, the

victorious army, by marching through the arch of triumph, was cleansed of past

offenses and consecrated to a new era of peace. For the people of the Old

Testament, the temple gate of Jerusalem took the place of the arch of triumph.

No armies marched through it, but the festive throngs of the pilgrims

approached it in solemn procession on the Feast of the Tabernacles. Their

summons rang out to the warders: “This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous

shall enter into it!”

The real door to the Messianic era, however, is not made of stone. It is the

living heart of the Saviour. The very shape of the door indicates salvation

through Christ, because its two side-posts, holding up the lintel, form a gallows-

shaped cross. Every wall effects a separation between those within, whom it

protects, and those without, whom it excludes. Walls, therefore, are needed

only in a world where enmity exists between those who share in the blessedness

of a common life and those who are strangers and exiles. The door, however,

pierces the wall, and unites the two groups – in the power of the cross.

After the earth had been cursed, and enmity placed between the serpent

and the woman, Paradise was walled off from the rest of the world. But the gate

remained, guarded by the cherub with the flaming sword – waiting for the time

of man’s re-entrance. God also hid his Holy Presence behind the walls of the

temple, but a door remained, through which, once a year, the high priest was

allowed to enter the Holy of Holies.

When Christ extended his hands on the Cross he became the Door

through which the wall of separation between God and ourselves was opened.

The cherub at the gate of Paradise put away his sword when God’s Eternal Love,

hanging on the Cross, said to the good thief: “This day you shall be with me in

Paradise!” When Christ gave up the spirit, the curtain of the Holy of Holies was

rent, to indicate that we can “enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus.”

Christ is the Door through which we have access to the Father, because he is the

sacrificial victim which reconciles us in one body to God, so that we are citizens

with the saints and members of God’s household.

This Door was foreshadowed in the door of Noah’s ark, which,

significantly enough, “was set in the side thereof”; the Door was opened when

the lance of the soldier pierced the side of Jesus. We enter through this Door by

being baptized into the Death and Resurrection of Christ, through which we are

cleansed from past offenses and consecrated as children of the Heavenly Father.