Genesis 28:10-17
Trinity 19
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠
“Where is God?” Many would answer by saying that, “God is in heaven,” or “God is in my heart,” or “God is everywhere.” Those answers are certainly not wrong; and yet, they are not the best answers that we can give as Lutheran Christians. For a god who is just everywhere is a god who in practice is really nowhere. A god who is merely everywhere is nowhere in particular for me. I’m no closer to him in one place than in another. OK, He’s everywhere, but how do I have access to Him? How do I see Him and hear Him and relate to Him? It’s like He’s always just two feet away but on the other side of a solid brick wall, and there are no doors to get through.
We learn from passages like today’s Old Testament reading that our God is One who is not merely everywhere but One who puts Himself somewhere, in specific places for His people. He’s not just “out there,” above and beyond us; nor is He “in here,” coming to us from within ourselves. Rather, God has made Himself accessible in particular, identifiable places for us and for our good. He’s not above locating Himself right where we’re at.
In the Old Testament account, Jacob was on a last-minute trip out of the country. He took this trip for two reasons. First, he was escaping danger. He had just deceived his blind father Isaac into thinking that he was the older son; in this way Jacob had stolen the family blessing from his brother Esau. You may recall how Jacob used the goat skin on his arms and wore Esau’s earthy-smelling clothes to accomplish the deception. Hairy-skinned Esau was furious about this and consoled himself by making plans to kill Jacob. However, while Jacob was putting some distance between himself and his brother, his parents had directed him to go to the land of his mother’s family and find a wife. For Jacob’s parents didn’t want him to marry one of the local pagan Canaanites. So Jacob was making this journey with a mixture of emotions–both with fear for his life because of his brother, but also with some degree of anticipation because he was hopefully about to get married and establish his own household.
Jacob, then, is a lot like us. For the fact of the matter is that as we walk the journey of our lives, few of us have it all together. Rather, our lives are generally more like Jacob’s–a mixture of good things and bad. We move through life trying to make the best out of what we’re confronted with. In some ways we’re running from our past with a little bit of fear of what might happen to us. In other ways we’re looking forward to the future with anticipation. Our lives, too, are usually a little more mixed up and complicated than we’d like them to be.
And quite honestly, like Jacob, we are often the cause of our own problems. Deception is an art that we also can practice. We too know how to put the goatskin on our arms, so to speak, to use manipulation and subtlety to make things go our way. But there are times when that subtlety backfires on us and things happen that we didn’t foresee. That’s how sin works–it brings consequences that we are blind to. Our lives are often muddled because, like Jacob, we are fallen human beings, unable to know God rightly or even take one step toward Him. A great canyon lies between us and God that we are incapable of crossing.
However, God still graciously came to Jacob, even in the middle of his mixed up life. During the night God gave Jacob a special vision in which he saw a ladder or staircase extending from heaven down to where he was. And please notice that this ladder wasn’t for climbing! The only ones on this ladder were angels ascending and descending. The whole point of the ladder is that God and God alone bridges the gap between Himself and sinners. He comes all the way to us, because we’re incapable of moving even one inch towards Him.
God came down to Jacob and gave Him two wonderful promises. First of all, the Lord confirmed to him the same promise that was given to his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac, namely, that all the earth would be blessed through him and his offspring. And we know that God kept that promise. For in about 14 years God would give Jacob another name, Israel, and out of the descendants of Israel came Him who is the promised offspring and Seed, our Lord Jesus, the Messiah. Through Him all the world is indeed blessed.
And God made a second promise to Jacob for the meantime–to be with him wherever he went, to protect him, and to bring him safely back home. The Lord said, “I will not leave you.” God broke into Jacob’s world, then, to comfort him and put his mind at ease–not because Jacob deserved it, but because of God’s awesome mercy in using even ordinary fallen people like him to carry out His plan of rescuing mankind from sin and its grave consequences.
And the good news for us is this: God has broken into our world in an even greater and more decisive way for our good. Listen to John 1, where Jesus spoke about Himself: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus purposefully used the very imagery of this Old Testament reading to describe Himself and His mission. Jacob’s ladder is a prophecy of Christ. For Christ is the true ladder between heaven and earth. He is the One who has bridged the gap between God and us. He is the One who, being true God, came down right to where we’re at and took on our human flesh in order to rescue and comfort us. The omnipresent, everywhere God located Himself for us in Jesus Christ, the descendant of Jacob. He stood with you by living a sinless life in your place; He rescued you by being executed on a cross, receiving your punishment as your stand-in. God Himself not only came down to where you are at and bridged the sin-gap in Jesus Christ, He became the sacrifice that covers our sin. He is the scapegoat, the lamb that was slaughtered so that we would receive the blessing of the Father and be a pleasing aroma to Him. The risen and ascended Jesus has completely delivered you from judgment. Through Him you will be received bodily into His glory on the Last Day. Where is God for you? In Jesus.
Note how Jacob responded faithfully, receiving God’s promises for what they were, and worshiping Him there. Jacob understood what a wondrous thing God had done in stepping into the world in that place. And so He set up the stone which was at his head as a pillar, and he called that place “Bethel,” which means, “House of God.” God wasn’t just everywhere for Jacob. He was in that particular location for him. Jacob rightly said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”
Just as it was with Jacob, so also it is for you. God comes to you to calm your fears and ease your minds, even in the middle of this mixed-up life. He provides for you; He protects you. And He continues, even today, to put Himself in particular places for you, to help and comfort and guide you.
God spoke to you at the holy font as He did to Jacob, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go . . . I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” The Lord is there for you holy baptism. For when He commanded it, Jesus said, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” “I have called you by name; you are mine.” You have been robed in the garment of your older brother, Jesus; covered in Christ, the Father treats you as the firstborn. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is truly present in that water to choose people as His own, to create faith and forgive sins. Whenever a pastor baptizes someone according to Christ's mandate, you can say with certainty, “There is heaven’s gate!”
The Lord is also truly present in His words. The Scriptures aren’t just some nice history book with a few teachings about morality. Rather, they are the living words of Christ through which the Holy Spirit brings us to repentance and grants us saving faith in Christ. Wherever God’s Word is, wherever it is preached and taught rightly, you can say without a doubt, “I heard the voice of God today.”
And God is truly and literally present in the Sacrament of the Altar. Christ’s very body and blood are there under the bread and wine. Through this Supper God brings you forgiveness and life and strengthens you to live as His own dearly loved people. It was angels that ascended and descended on Jacob’s ladder. And we join with them here to laud and magnify God’s glorious name. As we gather around the Lord’s altar, we can say the words of Jacob with complete assurance and boldness, “The Lord is in this place.”
All of this is nothing more than a restatement of Jesus’ words, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” God is not just everywhere. He has located Himself where we gather around His preaching and supper. Sure, you can pray to God at home or in your place up north. But it’s only in divine service that the Lord is here in the flesh for you. As a wise pastor once said, “Water is everywhere in the air. But if I want a drink, I must go to a well or fountain.”
Jacob said, “‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ And he was afraid.” So it is that you are called to have that due sense of fear and reverence that comes with being in the very presence of your Maker. Where is God? He is in Christ for you. And where is Christ? He is in this place, in His words and sacraments. This is the Portal through which we hear and come into contact with our Lord and receive His grace. Therefore, we say together with Jacob, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠