Jesus Knocking at the Gate of Heaven

The following was written by Kahlil Gibran, which appeared in Barbara Young’s book ‘This Man from Lebanon: A Study of Kahlil Gibran’.

Jesus Knocking at the Gate of Heaven

Father, my Father, open Your gate!
I bring with me a goodly company.
Open the gate that we may come in.
We are the children of Your heart, each one and all.
Open, my Father, open Your gate.

Father, my Father, I knock at Your gate.
I bring a thief who was crucified with me
this very day.
In spite of this
He is a gentle soul, and he would be Your guest.
He thieved a loaf for his children’s hunger.
But I know the light in his eyes would gladden You.

Father, my Father, open Your gate.
I bring a woman who gave herself to loving,
And they raised stones against her,
But knowing Your deeper heart, I held them back.
The violets are not withered in her eyes,
And Your April is yet upon her lips.
Her hands still hold the harvest of Your days,
And now she would enter with me to Your house.

Father, my Father, open the gate.
I bring to You a murderer,
A man with twilight on his face.
He hunted, for his young,
But unwisely did he hunt.
The warmth of the sun was upon his arms,
The sap of Your Earth was in his veins;
And he desired meat for his kin
Where meat was denied,
But his bow and arrow were too ready,
And he committed murder.
And for this he is now with me.



Father, my Father, open Your gate.
I bring with me a drunkard,
A man who thirsted for other than this world.
It was his to sit at Your board, with a cup,
With loneliness at his right hand,
He gazed deep into the cup
And therein he saw Your stars mirrored
in the wine,
And he drank deep for he would reach Your sky.

He would reach his greater self,
But he was lost upon the way, and he fell down.
I raised him, Father, from outside the Inn,
And he came with me, laughing half the way.
Now, though in my company, he weeps,
For kindness hurts him.
And for this I bring him to Your gate.

Father, my Father, open the gate.
I bring with me a gambler,
A man who would turn his silver spoon into
a golden sun;
And like one of Your spiders
Would weave the web and wait
For the fly that was also hunting the
smaller flies.
But he lost like all gamblers,
And when I found him wandering the streets
of the city
I looked into his eyes,
And I knew that his silver turned not into
gold,
And the thread of his dreams was broken.
And I bade him to my company.
I said to him “Behold your brothers’ faces
And My face.
Come with us, we are going to the fertile land
beyond the hills of life.
Come with us.”
And he came.

Father, my Father, You have opened the gate!
Behold, my friends.
I have sought them far and near;
But they were in fear and would not come with me
Until I revealed to them Your promise and
Your grace.

Now, that you have opened Your gate
And received and welcomed my companions,
There are on Earth no sinners,
Shut away from You and Your receiving.
There is neither hell nor purgatory;
Only you and heaven exist, and upon Earth, Man,
The son of Your ancient heart.

thanks