Jacob is on the run, even though his parents make up other reasons for his quick departure. He’s tricked his brother Esau out of the family blessing, taking the main inheritance from his twin brother for himself, first by taking advantage of Esau’s hunger and impatience, and then fooling his father into believing he was Esau when Isaac, who was partly blind, thought he was dying and so offered the family blessing to Jacob as Jacob dressed like, and made himself smell like his brother. Jacob’s mother Rebekah is afraid for Jacob’s safety and so persuades Isaac to send Jacob away to Rebekah’s family back in Haran to find a proper wife since there were only Canaanite women in the area. Esau had married a Canaanite and this disgusted Isaac, which didn’t help calm Esau’s anger towards Jacob, so Jacob runs.
As the sun sets, Jacob stops for the night. As he settles down to sleep, he takes a stone for a pillow and goes to sleep. The poet Walter Russell Bowie describes the place where Jacob stayed the night, “It was a hilltop of barren rock; and its barrenness seemed to represent at that moment Jacob’s claim on life. He was a fugitive, and he was afraid.” While asleep, Jacob’s visited by the Lord who gives him a dream where he sees “a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord.” We often picture a straight set of stairs, or a ladder like set of stairs, yet what Jacob saw was more like the ziggurats found in Babylonia, more like what is found in Genesis 11 and the story of the Tower of Babel. There are important differences in Jacob’s stairway and the Tower of Babel. Humanity built the Tower of Babel in order to reach the gods and become more like them, echoing back to the serpent’s temptation in the Garden of Eden. At the top of the ziggurats you would find shrines dedicated to the gods, making them a place of worship sacrifice.
In Jacob’s dream, the stairway gives us a glimpse into who God is. God makes the first move in reaching out to us, here Jacob is asleep and unable to reach out to God. God is a God at work, the one who reaches down to us, making a pathway in order to stay connected and involved with his creation, communicating and interacting with humanity. At the top of the stairway in Jacob’s dream, there’s no shrine, but God himself, directing the angels, looking out over his kingdom and creation. Our God is not a distant God, but a God who makes himself accessible to his people.
This is part of what Christmas is all about, it’s Jesus coming down the stairway to be with us. Jesus connects us more closely to the Father again. Jesus makes that clear in John 1 when he meets Nathanael, who becomes one of his disciples, “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”
We don’t need to reach up, or measure up to God, God comes down to us, even in the most ordinary of places, a plot of cold ground in the middle of the night. In the Garden of Eden, we chose to listen to Satan’s voice and align ourselves with him instead of God. Because of our choice, we were thrown out of the presence of God, out of the safety and surety of God’s presence. We became wanderers away from God. Jacob’s dream shows that God still looks out for us, even when we’re on the run and alone. God is there, reaching down from heaven to lift us up again. Jesus himself is the stairway, showing us in his conversation with Nathanael, that he’s the way to a full life with God who wants us to know his love and grace, and bringing us back into the presence of God.
The Lord speaks to Jacob in the dream, identifying himself, “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. 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. 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.” The Lord’s reminding Jacob of his long relationship with his family, beginning with his grandfather Abraham and then with his father Isaac. Now the Lord extends this relationship to Jacob as the bearer of the family blessing Jacob took from his brother.
The Lord reminds Jacob of the family blessing that includes the land he’s sleeping on, that his family will be large, and a blessing to all peoples on earth. Then the Lord promises to be with Jacob wherever he goes, and that he will bring Jacob home again. The Lord’s reminding Jacob that he’s unlike all other gods who only held power in limited places while the Lord has the power to protect and bless Jacob no matter where Jacob is. The Lord offers Jacob his blessing even though Jacob hasn’t fully committed himself to the Lord yet as his God. It reminds me that for many of us, our faith and commitment to Jesus is a journey and it takes time and encounters with God through the Holy Spirit to lead us to a place and time where we finally make that commitment. This is something we’re beginning to really focus in over the upcoming years, focusing more deeply on faith formation, leading our children and youth to where God becomes their God and not just their parents’ God, where we’re equipped to grow deeper in our faith and trust in God in all areas of our lives, and in all circumstances.
Jacob wakes up and he knows he’s just had an encounter with God, realizing that he wasn’t even aware of God’s presence. He takes the stone he used as a pillow and sets it up as a pillar, pouring oil over it and renaming the place Bethel, house of God. Jacob knows he doesn’t deserve God’s blessing, and so he makes a deal with God, a vow, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.” Blessings can be hard for us to receive, especially when we know we don’t deserve them at all, so it’s easier to try to offer some kind of payment or sacrifice to sooth our own soul. This is what Jacob does here.
This is what unconditional election is all about, it’s not about what we do, it’s all about God and him choosing us. It means that we don’t need to bargain with God, that we can trust him because he will give us better than we ask or deserve, and we know that God loves us better than we even love ourselves. We keep trying to earn God’s blessings, but Paul reminds us in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus comes and washes away our sin, he brings healing, offering us new life and hope, leading us home to our Father. He’s the stairway, the bridge that leads us to the Father. He’s the bridge that’s strong enough to carry us over the gulf between us and the Father, connecting earth and heaven. It’s all grace, we’ll never earn the blessings; this is why grace is beautiful and hard at the same time.
As the Gospels remind us, “Repent and believe, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” and the kingdom is near in the coming of Jesus to earth from heaven to bring renewal and restoration. Conceived by the Holy Spirit. Rooted in heaven! Born of the virgin Mary. Grounded on earth! As Son of God and Son of Man Jesus is the perfect bridge; the stairway to heaven sent by God. In a place called Bethel, Jacob the sinner dreams of the coming Saviour. And in a place called Bethlehem, his dream became reality. For through Jesus’ birth our longing for connection with God is fulfilled.
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