Jacob's Ladder

Genesis 28:10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. ¹¹ When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. ¹² He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. ¹⁵ 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." ¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." ¹⁷ 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."

The Lord makes it very clear in His holy Word that “your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). When the Lord inspired those words, He wasn’t exactly referring to shoplifting. However, applying God’s words are very easy when it comes to the case of 20-year-old Dustin Marshall. His sins have found him out.

A few weeks back Marshall was shopping around for a new pair of jeans. Of course, Marshall, just like the rest of us, knows the high prices that denim brings these days. Cost, and not oversight, is probably what caused Marshall to take a pair of jeans, try them on, leave them on, and leave the Gallatin, Tennessee Wal-Mart store without paying for them.

His was hardly a perfect crime. You see, Marshall left his old pair of jeans at the Wal-Mart. And did I mention he also left his wallet in that old pair of jeans? Police caught up with Marshall and his girlfriend after they had slipped out of a Longhorn Steakhouse without paying for that bill.

Admittedly, Marshall was pretty incompetent when it came to covering up his crimes. His sins found him out.

But that’s also the case with Jacob in our Old Testament lesson. He was pretty incompetent when it came to receiving the blessings God has promised Him. Even though Jacob was the younger of the twins, the Lord had promised Rachel, their mother, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23). But the promise wasn’t enough for Jacob. He wanted the birthright outright, so he took advantage of his brother Esau, buying the eldest son’s birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. Years later, Jacob then tricked his aging, nearly blind, father Isaac into giving him the blessing that was rightfully his brother Esau’s. Jacob was now running away from this mess that he made, to live with some relatives that he had never met. Jacob was pretty incompetent. His sins found him out. Given his biography, you might begin to wonder which of the two was harder – Jacob’s head or the rock he used for a pillow for his head! Why would God want anything to do with this deceiver?

And then there’s Peter, disagreeing with Jesus (Mark 8:32). Rebuking Him! It seems the only thing that went into Peter’s mouth more often than food was his foot! Peter seemed to often open his mouth before he engaged his mind. Peter wanted to build three tents at Jesus’ transfiguration because he didn’t know what else to do. He spoke up for the rest of the disciples, but often didn’t have a clue what he was saying. He vowed to die with Jesus, but when a young servant girl challenged him, he denied Jesus. Peter was pretty incompetent. His sins found him out, too. Why would God want anything to do with this denier?

Good questions. But here’s an even better one: why would God want anything to do with you and me? We are just as incompetent of sinners as these two. In fact, how often are we not like Jacob and Peter rolled into one? Or even worse. Surely we have some doubting Thomas in us – believing in God as Savior from sin, but not really trusting him to get us out of our debt or out of our hospital bed. Sprinkle in a little Judas for those times when we betray Jesus and sell Him out for vacations, athletic events and overtime pay. There’s definitely a whole lot of Eve, tasting forbidden pleasures. If Eve is there, then Adam is there, too, keeping silent, not warning of the dangers of sin, but even joining in tasting the poisoned fruit.

Who else do you have in you? Maybe some King David with his illicit lusts? How about some Moses and his excuse making? Or the Israelites and their constant complaining? Jeremiah and his self pity? Gideon and his sheepishness? Samson and his stubbornness? Annanias and Sapphira and their lying? Aaron and his worship of false gods?

Jacob had been promised God’s blessings, but he didn’t want to wait for them. Peter had the Son of God walking alongside of Him, but he didn’t trust Jesus’ words. We are just as incompetent as all of them. God has promised us blessings. He has given us His Son. But we remain doubting, denying, stubborn, cowardly, moody, self-centered sinners. Why would God want anything to do with you and me?

And yet, He does! Jacob, Peter, you and me. Not because of anything inside of us! Not because of anything we do! That’s clear! In fact, it is exactly what we do that should cause God to reject us! Yet He chooses us simply because we are unworthy of His grace and blessings. The forgotten second-born, the lowly fisherman, the overworked housewife, the grumpy father, the bitter old man, the gossipy older lady, the crabby teenager, the snotty kid – God comes to all of us and promises Himself to us. “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Because we had nothing to offer to God, God offered His Son for us. He demonstrates His own love us in this: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

It was grace that caused Jesus to come down to earth as God in human flesh. And it was grace that caused the Lord to come down to Jacob in his dream. The Lord was reassuring Jacob that he though he had run from his family and his responsibilities, the Lord had not abandoned Jacob. He was still a child of God. Jacob was not alone in that foreign place.

You can imagine that Jacob was kicking himself for his stupidity of taking divine matters into his own hands. Now he was on the run. It was a 500 mile journey from Beersheba, near where Jerusalem is today, to the southern part of today’s Turkey. He had to travel through the lands of foreigners, by himself, to go to an uncle he had never met before. An uncle who would turn out to be an even bigger cheat than Jacob was. His whole life was turned upside down when he stole that birthright. Tired, alone, and most likely scared, Jacob laid down for the night. He had traveled for 2 to 3 days, about 70 miles. How tired must he have been from running, deceiving and his guilty conscience plaguing him, that he used a rock for a pillow?!

Since Jacob could not reach up to God, God reached down to this broken man. Even though he had lied, cheated and stolen, the Promise of God which he had been given was still true. God appeared to Jacob in a dream, but a dream unlike any other. Over the years, many have tried to decipher the meaning of this dream, from a movie starring Tim Robbins, to musical groups like Led Zeppelin and Huey Lewis and the News to an old fashioned wooden toy.

But we don’t need to guess what Jacob’s Ladder is. Jesus Himself gave us the key to understand it when He said, “You shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). Jesus Christ is Jacob’s Ladder. The angels ascend to take your prayers up to God and they descend to provide protection to God’s children. There has to be a Ladder because we humans had separated ourselves from God. Our sins and rebellion have created a huge gulf between the holy God and sinful human beings.

The world record for pole vaulting is 6.1 meters. The world record for long jump is 8.95 meters. No matter how high or how far we jump, we cannot reach jump over the huge chasm sin has created so that we might reach God. We will always fall short. That’s why the Bible says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12) and “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). There is no way for sinful people like Jacob, Peter or any of us to return to Him. Instead, God had to bridge that gap and bring His presence to us.

Jesus is the Ladder. He connects earth with heaven. He brings God to sinful man by becoming Man. He unites the Church on earth with God in heaven through His Word of forgiveness. Christ Jesus, our Immanuel, is “God with us.” Jesus is the Ladder that had to be lowered from above. It could not be raised from below. We could not raise a ladder of our own making to reach God. God had to reach down to us through His Son.

It is not by our choice that God opens heaven, since He did not wait for Jacob to choose that dream. God did not listen for Jacob to give His heart to Him or decide on Him or pray some kind of “sinner’s prayer.” No, God gave His promise freely, just as Christ gave Himself freely on Calvary, while were all still enemies of God.

The place where God makes that connection of the Ladder here on earth is Bethel, which means “the house of God.” Even though he was poor, Jacob set up his own worship site by setting apart this small rock and pouring oil on it and calling it Beth El – Beth is Hebrew for house and El is short for Elohim, God. This was where God reached down to Jacob to assure him, forgive him and extend His promises to him once more. At Jacob’s church, his House of God.

We are just as homeless and hopeless and helpless as Jacob. We are just as sinful and deceptive and unworthy. And yet God reaches down to us, not in a dream, but in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Epiphany Lutheran Church is the House of God. Wherever Jacob’s Ladder touches earth, that place is Bethel.

Here in this House, we pause from the fears and troubles that surround us. Powerful and bloodthirsty enemies would like to kill us. The devil and his demons are trying to lead us to hell. Our own deceptive natures attempt to lead us away from God so that we feel alone and afraid. Even brothers betray us.

But like Jacob, we pilgrims and wanderers are able to enter our Bethel. Here in God’s House a baby becomes a child of God in Baptism. Here in God’s House a teenager receives absolution for what he did the night before. Here in God’s House a member receives strength in the Lord’s Supper for another difficult week at work. Here in God’s House we approach the throne of grace so that our prayers may ascend to be heard by the Lord. Here in God’s house, the angels are here to receive glimpses of the glory of God on earth.

Not that we deserve any of this. No, just the opposite. Our sins have found us out. We are incompetent Christians. And God knows that. And yet He still accepts us. He still loves us. He still comes to us. The Lord is not an abandoning God, but a seeking Shepherd who never rests until He finds His lost sheep. And there that night at Bethel, out in the middle of nowhere, the Good Shepherd found His lost lamb named Jacob, and put Him on His shoulders to give Him the promise of carrying Him to the green pastures of His heavenly home.

Fellow saints of God, every time God’s Word is spoken by a pastor over the bread and wine, over simple water in a font, heaven comes down to earth.  Angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven sing before the Lamb who was slain but is alive forevermore. The saints in heaven and on earth join together in song and praise their Savior for His glorious condescension. This reality is the same whether it’s happening in a modest 85 year-old church in Racine, WI or if it’s in a centuries old grand cathedral in Europe. The reality is the same. God comes down to His sinners. Jacob’s Ladder. Bethel. Heaven on earth. Amen.