Climbing Jacob's Ladder

Genesis 28.10-19a

Last Monday we heard the story of Esau and Jacob being born.  Jacob being the heel grabber even as he came out of the womb, and Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. 

In the chapters between that story in chapter 25 and this story in chapter 28, Isaac is on his death bed and gives the blessing reserved for the first born son to Jacob rather than Esau.  Esau is understandably angry, and wants to kill Jacob.  So Jacob flees and leaves Esau behind. 

I find it intriguing that he is going toward Haran – the land where his grandfather Abraham was called from – when he has this dream. 

There’s the old spiritual Jacob’s ladder that comes from this reading.  Huey Lewis and the News recreated that song when I was younger – climbing Jacob’s ladder.  Step by step.  Rung by rung.  Higher and higher.  We are climbing Jacob’s ladder. 

But what I find most compelling about this reading is that this is the first time in Jacob’s story that God speaks to him. Jacob is alone, running away from his past, uncertain of his future, and it is here, at his most vulnerable moment, that God speaks to Jacob for the first time:

“I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.” God describes himself as the God of Jacob’s grandfather and father though not (yet) the God of Jacob himself. This God has a history with Jacob’s family and is known through those relationships.

The Lord goes on to give Jacob the promise that Jacob already received from his father Isaac, the promise given first to Abraham: land, offspring, and blessing. And then God goes on to promise Jacob even more:

“Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:15).

It is a very gracious promise.  Jacob has cheated his brother and deceived his father and is now running for his life. Yet God promises to be with Jacob, to keep him from harm, and to bring him back home again.

Jacob’s reaction to such a gracious promise is mixed. First, he acknowledges the holiness of the moment and of the place: “Surely the Lord is in this place -- and I did not know it.… How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (28:17).

Jacob then sets up a pillar of rock, and names the place Beth-El: the house of God.

If you have time this day and are intrigued by this story, I encourage you to read it a bit further to see what Jacob does next. After God’s gracious, unconditional promise to be with Jacob and to bring him home again, Jacob -- ever the schemer -- bargains with God:

“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you” (Genesis 28:20-22).

Jacob cannot simply accept or trust God’s promises. God promises, without condition, that God will be with Jacob and will bring him home again, and Jacob says, “If you are with me and bring me home again…then you will be my God.”

Jacob would never make an unconditional promise. Jacob is in it for himself and he cannot comprehend a God who would promise something for nothing, so he schemes and bargains with this God. The Lord may be the God of Abraham and Isaac, but Jacob will claim him as God if and only if God protects and prospers him.

Jacob is a complicated figure. On the one hand, he recognizes and commemorates God’s appearing to him. On the other hand, he cannot seem to grasp the magnitude of God’s grace, and so he bargains and wrestles with God just as he bargains and wrestles with every other person in his life.

And though this story is primarily about God and God’s gracious promises, it is worth noting that those promises have an effect on Jacob -- self-centered, scheming Jacob. Twenty years after this encounter at Beth-El, as Jacob returns home from Haran, this time accompanied by family and flocks and herds, he prays another prayer. And this time, he does not bargain with God.

From that moment on in the biblical narrative, this same God will self-identify as “the Lord…the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”