Genesis 28:10-22
“We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,We are climbing Jacob’s ladder, We are climbing Jacob’s ladder, brothers, sisters all.”
These are the words of a children’s song which perhaps some of you sang in Sunday School. The story of Jacob’s Ladder is a popular one in Sunday Schools – I remember hearing it as a child. It has also inspired hymns:
O God of Bethel, by Whose hand
Thy people still are fed,
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led.
A lonely exile
It’s the story of a young man away from home for the first time. He had left home in a bit of a hurry – in order to escape the wrath of his brother. For Jacob had stolen his father’s blessing from his older brother Esau.
Let’s make no bones about it: Jacob was a cheat. Even at birth he was gripping the heel of his twin brother. It was as if he was, even then, trying to cheat his brother of his rights as first born son! So they gave him the name Jacob, which really means “he who grasps” or “he who deceives”.
Jacob was a cheat and he had left home under something of a cloud. He was now on his way to Northern Mesopotamia to live with his uncle Laban. It was a journey of hundreds of miles. Jacob was weary and lonely and downcast that evening as he camped at a certain place for the night. He didn’t have a tent – he just lay down where he was, using an oblong boulder as a head rest.
As he rested his head on his hard and uncomfortable pillow Jacob was comforted by God in a dream. There was this ladder or stairway reaching right up to heaven. God stood above it and angels were going up and down the ladder. (Presumably they were carrying the prayers of God’s people to him, and bringing back to earth God’s grace and help.)
The Lord spoke to Jacob: promising that all the blessings he had promised to Abraham his grandfather would be fulfilled in Jacob and his descendants.They would be more numerous than the dust of the earth and all peoples on earth would be blessed through them. “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (v15).
Awestruck
When Jacob awoke he was awestruck: “he thought, Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven”. (v16,17)He took the stone he had used as a headrest and raised it up on its end as a memorial. He anointed it with oil and dedicated it to God. And he called that place Bethel – “house of God”.
(Later it became a shrine – at one time the Tabernacle was housed there. After the kingdom was split in two Bethel became the main shrine for the Northern kingdom Israel. They set up golden calves to worship and the place became a den of idolatry. But that was long after the time of Jacob.)
Jacob was very much aware of God’s goodness to him – undeserved goodness. He had done nothing to merit such blessings. In fact he really deserved to have them taken away for him for all the cheating and deception. Jacob made a vow that if God provided him with food and clothing, and brought him safely back to his father’s house, then he would make a shrine at Bethel and he would give a tenth of all the wealth he earned to God. It seems a bit like trying to make a bargain with God – something you should never do. But you see, Jacob was not truly converted yet. He had had an experience of God, yes. But his heart had not changed – he was still the same old cheating Jacob. His real conversion came years later, when he struggled with an angel. His pride was finally broken, he submitted his life to God’s will and his name was changed to Israel. But all that was far in the future.
The house of God for us
What is the message to us from Jacob’s dream of a stairway to heaven? Jacob had been wandering in a wild and desolate place – a god-forsaken place you might think. But that place became, for Jacob, “the house of God and the gate of heaven” because there he met with God.
The message to us, surely, is that any place can be the “House of God”. We may meet with him in a magnificent cathedral or in humble chapel. We may worship at a beautiful shrine or a tin tabernacle We might experience God’s presence on a mountain-top or down in the valley, at home or in the fields, in the county or on the city street. We can meet with him everywhere. Maybe it was a mistake of Jacob to make Bethel into a shrine, for God had said: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go”. (v 15)
All this is put into perspective for us by the words of Jesus on two occasions in the Gospel of John:
1) Jesus the Ladder
In John 1: 50-51 we read of Jesus’ encounter with Nathaniel:
Jesus said, You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig-tree. You shall see greater things than that. He then added, I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. ( v50-51)
Angels ascending and descending – it reminds us of Jacob’s stairway to heaven. Surely, what Jesus is saying is, ” I am the ladder or stairway to heaven”. On another occasion he claimed to be the one way to the Father. Jesus is the ladder, or stairway, or bridge between us and God. Born of Mary, and yet Son of God, he is both human and divine. Thus he brings us to God, and brings God to us. “Emmanuel – God with us” was the title ascribed to him at his birth.
2) Spirit and Truth
Later in John’s Gospel ( chapter 4:20-24) Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. They get into a religious conversation. “Where should we worship” the Samaritan woman asks, “On this mountain where we Samaritans worship, or in Jerusalem where you Jews worship?”
Jesus declared, Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.( v21) ….. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. (v23-24).
If you have the right spirit and you know the truth, then you can worship God anywhere. All that is required for Christian worship is the Holy Spirit in your heart and the truth of God’s word in your mind. You don’t need a church or a chapel. You don’t need a pulpit or an altar. You don’t need hymnbooks or musical instruments. You don’t even need a Bible ( as long as God’s truth is in your mind). You don’t need to go on pilgrimage to Rome or Jerusalem, or to any other shrine to be near to God. You can be near to him wherever you are – for God is spirit.
Conclusion
This was something which Jacob had not yet realised, but is is the very basis of our faith. Jesus is the ladder to bring us to God and through him we shall reach heaven.
Through each perplexing path of life
Our wandering footsteps guide;
Give us each day our daily bread,
And raiment fit provide.
O spread Thy covering wings around
Till all our wanderings cease,
And at our Father’s loved abode
Our souls arrive in peace.
