Jesus is asked if only a few people will be saved.  He does not answer the question by giving a number or percentage, but instead urges His listeners to do everything they can to be among those who find salvation.  No matter how narrow the door of salvation may appear to you, no matter how hard you may have to struggle to get through it, enter it! -for the alternative is exceedingly unpleasant.  A passing knowledge of Jesus and a casual adherence to His ways is not enough.  That is made evident in verses 26 and 27.

By the time Luke wrote His Gospel, Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed.  Christians saw that destruction as God’s judgment on people who did not try their best to enter by the narrow door, people who depended on their national heritage and its connection with God.

Now Christians were beginning to depend on their relationship with Jesus instead of living that relationship and growing in their likeness to Jesus. Luke’s primary concern here is not pointing out reasons why Jerusalem failed to respond to Jesus.   He uses the facts of Jesus’ unbending demand for repentance and of Jerusalem’s failure to heed that demand as means of admonishing His own community.  Luke’s intention is seen especially in verse 23, where one simple individual asks Jesus a question and Luke begins Jesus’ answer with “He said to them.”  Also the “you” of Jesus’ answers in verses 24-29 is plural, not singular.  Jesus is addressing the Christians of Luke’s time.  These Christians must not gloat over what happened to Jerusalem.  Luke exhorts them not to rest on their laurels.  The shoo-ins of the other group did not make the winner’s circle.  The same can happen to you.

God Bless,

Msgr. Powell