Jacob has a dream – a ladder reaching down from the clouds towards him. On the ladder, traveling
up and down are angels. At the top, God, who identifies himself as the God of Jacob’s father, Isaac, and grandfather,
Abraham.
In this dream God promises Jacob that the land upon which he was sleeping would be the
dwelling place for the numerous descendants who would be Jacob’s heirs. In addition, God promises that wherever Jacob
goes, God would go with him, never leave him or forsake him, and at the last bring him to the land of promise.
Jacob is left in total awe. “How dread-full is this place” he declares. “This
is the gate of heaven.” He marks the place as sacred and vows to be a servant of God for the rest of his days.
Must have been a vivid dream! I’ve had some strange dreams, even some challenging
ones, but nothing quite like Jacob’s ladder. And what does it all mean? To Jacob it is a life-changing encounter with
God. But what about us? What can this passage of scripture say to people like
us who are so far removed from Jacob’s experience?
One thing I believe that it reminds us of is that…
God is a God of Mystery
In the satirical movie ‘Dogma’ an image of Christ is put forward sporting a cheesy grin and giving the ‘thumbs
up’ to life. This new updated icon is known as the
“Buddy Christ” described as an attempt to reintroduce the deity to a fun loving world.
At times we do indeed portray Jesus as the ‘best friend we could ever have’,
or in such homely earthly tones that we are in danger of obscuring the fact of His deity. We create a very safe God for ourselves.
A God we can define, a God who can be fully known and is in full agreement with our earthly desires.
Such is not the God revealed to us by Jacob. Jacob’s God is one who transcends time
and space, a God who can only be known through what that God chooses to reveal to us, a God whose holiness is of such magnitude
that He can only be approached through visions and dreams, for a face-to-face encounter would surely destroy us.
One author uses the Latin phrase “Mystereum Tremendum”, another, Rudolf Otto
in his book “The idea of the Holy” coins the word “Numinous” to describe the person of God. This numinous
God of tremendous mystery is known only through revelation. This is the God who drops a ladder down from heaven and sends
angels scurrying back and forth to do His bidding.
This God is wholly other than what we are. Rather like a scene in a Sci-Fi movie, this
God occasionally creates a portal, a ‘Stargate’ to the other world, the other dimension, where we catch just a
glimpse of a greater reality behind the external world of our everyday workaday lives.
Now whilst as Christians we do believe we have a broader picture of God than Jacob in the
life and work of Jesus Christ, if we lose the sense of the mystery of God and lose the sense that God is ultimately unknowable
and the One who remains beyond us and above us, then we are no longer worshipping God but a deity that we have created within
our own imaginations, a God that will be contained by our prejudices, misunderstandings, and unbelief.
Those angels going up and down, a God working in unseen and scarcely comprehendible ways,
a God who remains unpredictable and whose purpose we never can fully fathom… such appears to be a more realistic portrayal
of the God of the Bible than the rather lame ‘good buddy Jesus’ of some popular theology. Jacob’s ladder
reminds us that God is a God of mystery.
Mysterious however does not equate to unknowable. We can know God through what God chooses
to reveal to us. One of the revelations that comes to Jacob is that…
God is a God of Promise
Jacob is given particular
promises in relation to his life’s journey. Supreme of these is that promise that wherever he goes and wherever life
leads him, God was going to be there for him. In words reminiscent of Jesus’ commission to the disciples on the mountaintop,
Jacob receives the assurance: “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (verse
15)
That the unknowable,
awesome, almighty God should promise such a thing to any mortal man or woman took Jacob’s breath away. “Surely
the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (verse 16). The promises of God that come to us are no less awe-inspiring! Think for a moment! Why should God even be bothered with the likes of you and me? What is there about us that is noteworthy to the Divine? Why should God care to be
involved in our lives and interested in where we end up?
I can’t give
you a reason why. All I can say is that God has revealed Himself as a Father who cares for His children, as a redeemer who
in Jesus Christ seeks to bring restoration, healing, and renewal to our lives, and as the Holy Spirit who desires to be in
us and around us and working through us the things of God’s Kingdom.
It makes no sense.
In our lives we seem to be running from God as much as we run towards God. We know the commandments and seek to find loopholes
or ways around them. We know our inconsistencies and struggles and besetting sins. We know we are not all that we think we
are, let alone all that others may be generous enough to think we are.
For me, one of the
attractions of reformed theology is that it rests heavily upon the concept of the Grace of God. That is, we are saved not
by our acts of commitment to God but by God’s promises and acts of commitment towards us. Supreme in those acts of commitment is the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. There is nothing
we can do to win the favor of God. We are entirely dependant upon God for our salvation.
As we saw on a previous
occasion, Jacob was no saint. He was a smooth talking mothers’ boy who tricked his brother Esau out of a birthright
that rightly belonged to the elder brother. In the process he had deceived his own Father, played a trick on that man of honor
whilst he’s in his old age and suffering from the loss of mobility and sight.
If you follow Jacob’s story, his romances, his deals with different families and powers, the times
he runs away rather than face consequences, there is a lot about his life that is decidedly unsavory. Were it not for the
Grace of God that called him and carried him and forgave him, and refused to let him go, Jacob would have ended his days as
a nobody.
The love of God
is such that it embraces all of us no-bodies and makes us somebody…somebody that Jesus cared enough to die for...somebody
that God cares about...somebody whose life can make a difference…a child of God…unique.
And it’s all
because of God’s grace. Acts of commitment come as a response to the love that God is showing us. Praise God! Jesus
has secured our salvation! But we must claim it as our own. It’s no good having won a prize if you never claim it! A
third thing we see in Jacob’s story is that…
God is a God who inspires our commitment.
In response to the
promises of God, Jacob makes some promises of his own. Verse 20:- “If God will be with me and will keep me on this
journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety,
then the Lord will be my God.”
Can we say something
similar in our lives? “You know,God, you just keep on loving me in spite of the mess I make of things. You keep showering
down blessings on me and promising to lead me. You sent Jesus to make things so much clearer and deal with the things that
could keep us apart. I keep reading in the Bible that there’s even some ‘out of the world’ positive stuff
at the end of the road for those who trust in You. So, Lord, Be my God and help
me to be Your sort of person.”
May
it be so in our lives, as we experience God’s unwarranted Grace.
