There are, though, at least six references to the gate and gatekeeper in today’s text. In my three decades of preaching, I don’t know that I’ve ever explored Jesus as the gate in a sermon. So, I’m going to give it a shot today.

Jesus said, “I am the gate.” That sounds quite mechanical, doesn’t it – quite literally. Gates are mechanisms, inanimate objects. Jesus was the Word of God made flesh! Jesus was so personal, so relational. Why liken himself to an object? It’s curious. My childhood memories include having trouble figuring out how to open gates. I recall sometimes needing help to be let in or out. In short, I needed a gatekeeper. Jesus as gatekeeper is one thing. Jesus as the gate itself – that’s a different image entirely.

Nowadays, we talk about gated communities – often private suburban housing developments surrounded by fences and electronically controlled gates. My son’s grandparents live in one such development in Tucson. When I was driving there for a recent visit, my GPS directions brought me right to the most convenient gate, but one that required a key card to open it, which I did not possess. So, I had to find a gate with a gatekeeper.

Gated communities in major cities like Washington and New York come in the form of doorman buildings, where the doormen – and almost always they are men in my experience – serve as the gatekeepers.

The General Theological Seminary, where I taught, was a gated block called the Close, short for Cloister, or monastic enclosure. This block included some of the largest privately held green space in Manhattan. It was like a sheepfold, protected from the noise and dangers and heat of the city – in fact, the Close was often several degrees cooler on hot summer days. There were lovely lawns and gardens – small green pastures, if you will. The block was enclosed by tall, wrought iron fences. There were few ways in and out, and it took some effort to get in or out. The centerpiece of the Close was the Chapel of the Good Shepherd which features a statue of Jesus holding a little lamb. The imagery is striking and intentional in reference to our experience of being Jesus’ sheep under the care of the Good Shepherd in the sheepfold, safe and secure.

Still, Jesus said, “I am the gate.” What did this, in fact, mean in Jesus’ day?

Here’s what the biblical Greek suggests about a gate: it’s a door, an opening, an entrance, a passageway to the sheepfold. It’s the right path, the proper way. It’s the opening through which the sheep also go out from protection to find good pasture on which to graze.

Shepherds would often spend the night, lying down at the gate to protect the sheep from intruders – from human thieves and wild animal predators. In this way, the shepherd was both gatekeeper and gate. Now we’re getting somewhere in understanding what Jesus meant about his being the gate and gatekeeper.

Jesus said, “I am the gate.” As I see in my mind’s eye the shepherd lying down overnight at the gate to protect the sheep, I think of what else Jesus said in John’s Gospel: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)

Let’s explore some more. Is a gate meant for inclusion or exclusion, to keep the sheep in or to keep intruders out? The answer is, “yes!” Both. The gate is meant to exclude thieves and bandits and strangers who kill and destroy. The gate is meant to include, to enfold the sheep in safety and security.

Moreover, Jesus has in mind a lot of sheep who will pass in and out of his gate. A little later in John, he says: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:16)

Jesus said, “I am the gate.” What does this mean for us today? That is to say, what are the gates in contemporary Christian life and who are the gatekeepers?

As the “I am the gate” statement comes during Eastertide, the primary image that comes to my mind is the entrance to Jesus’ empty tomb as gate, or gateway. Furthermore, Jesus’ resurrected, living body is itself a gate to life eternal.

The gate of the portal to the tomb, the passageway having been cleared of the stone which blocked the way, is a sign of the resurrection. The entrance to the tomb is the free passageway to what Jesus promises in today’s gospel reading: “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:9-10)

The entrance to the empty tomb as gate is a liminal threshold, that is, one of those thin places that makes possible the otherwise impossible passageway from death to new life, from darkness to light, from sin to salvation, and more.

We as sheep can rest in the security of Jesus’ empty tomb as womb, as sheepfold. And then we’re free to leave the womb of the tomb to go out to green pasture in the light of the resurrection dawn. That’s the abundant Christian life that Jesus envisions for us and makes available to us.

Our points of access to this empty tomb gateway are the means of grace which center our Christian life together:

• First, there is Baptism – dying in the tomb of sin and death, passing through to eternal life, a new birthing via the water, the word and the Spirit.
• Then there is the Eucharist – a threshold through which we consume heavenly bread and wine, Christ’s own body and blood, where our mouths are also a sacred gateway allowing us to incorporate into ourselves a foretaste of God’s feast to come.
• Moreover, there is God’s holy word of scripture – where each sacred word is a kind of seed which, when broken open, acts as a gateway to permit us to see and know the vision of God’s victorious reign.

If these are the gates in our Christian life today, then who are the gatekeepers? A Pastor – a Latin word that means shepherd – is also a gatekeeper, that is, the one charged with the authority to preside over the sacred, sacramental means of grace, and to be the chief preacher and teacher in a local congregation, keeping the flock steadfast in God’s word.

In these gateways of the bath, the table, and the word is our freedom to go out and to come in, to know protection from the Good Shepherd, the gate and gatekeeper, at times of darkness and danger, and during the light of day to enjoy running room in green pastures.

May this image of Jesus as the gate give you a sense of safety and security now when life in a Covid-19 world seems anything but safe and secure.

May you feel spiritually enfolded among your companion sheep together in the church, even when we are physically apart.

May Jesus, the gate and gatekeeper, give you a sense of freedom to stay put and to graze, knowing with confidence that whether we come or go, we have life abundant in Jesus’ name. Amen.

God be with you ‘til we meet again.