YouTube: I Am the Door
In the Gospel of John, we find Jesus saying, “I am the door” (Jn 10:9). Mainstream Christian theology teaches that accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is the only way to God. In truth, God is accessible to all, regardless of their religious orientation. John is using the voice of Jesus to lend credibility to the teaching of the church.
When I read John, I have found it helpful to think of his voice of Jesus as the voice of my own soul. When he says, “I am the door,” for example, or “I am the way,” I read this as my soul, my spiritual essence as being that door, that way. Our spiritual essence is our only way to God. When Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice,” the sheep represent that part of us that recognizes the genuine inspiration that rises from the depths of our being. It begins as a still small voice but becomes more pronounced as we learn to listen and know.
The door is a powerful metaphor. The front door of your house opens to the interior of your home and it also opens to the limitless outdoors. In Revelation, Jesus is quoted as saying,
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:20
In this case, Jesus is not portrayed as the door, but as the one who is knocking and would like to come in. Again, the voice of Jesus is the voice of our soul. The knocking we hear, or actually feel, is our natural urge to open our mind to greater possibilities of being. This is an intuitive knowing, very natural but not widely understood. Jesus says there are thieves and robbers that will try to steal your sheep, meaning there are all kinds of distractions that can take us down paths that lead nowhere. We want our sheep to find rich pasture, or open the door to true spiritual nourishment.
For me, this is the real message coming from John. When we begin to understand our oneness with God, then it becomes clear that the door to God is within us. This is not about Jesus; it’s about each one of us and our developing understanding of the guiding promptings that bring us into firsthand knowledge of our unity with the Infinite.