When Jesus is asked “Lord, will only a few people be saved?”  He does not reveal how many people will be saved.  Instead, He answers the crowd in the way that will be the greatest benefit to their salvation.

     Firstly, Jesus stresses the difficulty of attaining eternal salvation.  In this life, we will have trials — “Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24) — and so the letter to the Hebrews encourages us to see our trials rightly and not become discouraged.  Our crosses are not the evidence of God beating us down for every fault and failure.  On the contrary, they reveal our wise and loving Father Who loves us far too much to overlook our imperfections and immaturity, and Who therefore sends us trials to train us in righteousness and form us into mature icons of Christ, “Who learned obedience from what He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).  Through our crosses and trials, we can derive great benefit; they can teach us to fix our hearts on the true gladness of Heaven and make us strong enough to enter through the narrow gate (c.f. Luke 13:24).

     Secondly, Jesus speaks about the inclusion of both Israelites and Gentiles in His Kingdom. In the first reading, in addition to alluding to the return of the exiled Israelites, God declares: “I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see My glory . . . ; from them I will send fugitives to the nations . . . , to the distant coastlands that have never heard of My fame, or seen My glory; and they shall proclaim My glory among the nations” (Isaiah 66:18, 19b).  God wills for all mankind — “from the east and the west and from the north and the south” (Luke 13:29) — to know His goodness, mercy, and love and to be supremely and eternally happy with Him in Heaven: “For steadfast is His kindness toward us, and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever” (Psalm 117:2).  God excludes no one from salvation who will accept Him, listening to His voice, loving what He commands, and desiring what He promises.

     Salvation depends first of all on God’s grace, and then on our cooperation with that grace and obedience to His will (c.f. Ephesians 2:8-10, Philippians 2:12-13), but we cannot expect to be saved if we call Jesus “Lord” but do not do what He commands (c.f. Luke 6:46).  Therefore, let us strive to enter through the narrow gate that leads to salvation; let us live rightly and seek to truly know the Lord, that at our judgment we may be among those whom Christ acknowledges before His Father.

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