Stairway from Heaven (Genesis 28)

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Jacob is a complicated biblical character, a man whose relationship with God was rocky at best. 

We first meet him grabbing his twin brother’s heel while they are being born, as if to say, “Me First!” His name means, literally, “He who grasps the heel.” 

What began at birth continued throughout his life. However, despite his character flaws, Jacob is the one to whom God promised his covenant blessing. 

But he is unwilling to trust God work to things out in his own way. He tricks his older brother out of his birthright. Then he tricks his father out of the family blessing. 

As a result, fearing for his safety, he must seek his fortune elsewhere. He runs away to his grandfather's ancestral land. There he finds the love of his life, his cousin Rachel — and the bane of his life, her father, Laban.

In his unscrupulous uncle, Jacob seems to have met his match. Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his older daughter Leah, rather than her beautiful sister, Rachel. The trickster is himself tricked. But that’s a story for another day, and Jacob will get the better of his uncle in the end.

This is all far in the future when Jacob travels to the old country to escape his murderous brother. He’s a man on the run, with nothing but a stone for his pillow. Grasping for future destiny had only left him destitute. What would he do next? 

As he struggles to get some rest, Jacob dreams about a ladder – “a flight of steps" -- stretching from earth to heaven. No doubt, readers are meant to recall the Tower of Babel, which men built in order to reach the heavens and make a name for themselves.

But this is a different kind of tower. On the steps of this stairway, the angels of God are “ascending and descending.” Not men climbing up toward God, but God’s messengers coming down to men. Not a stairway to heaven, but a stairway from heaven!

In the midst of this magnificent scene, God shows up. He blesses with Jacob the same promise he gave to his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham: He will give him this land. He will give him a family, through whom all families of the earth will be blessed. And, best of all, he promises Jacob his presence: “I am with you … I will not leave you.”

Jacob shook the sleep from his eyes when he awoke: “Surely, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Despite his failures, his grasping, and his duplicity, God has not abandoned him. God is with him, even though he doesn’t deserve it. He had not been looking for God, but God was looking for him.

Jacob takes the stone which had been his pillow, and makes from it an altar of worship. He promises to be faithful to the God who has been faithful to him. This is the first of several turning points in Jacob’s life, places where Jacob encountered God. His life would never be the same. He would still make many mistakes, but as best he could, he would follow the God who had chosen him.

In like manner, we, who have no doubt done our own share of grasping, of deceiving, and of running away, cannot help but be moved by the God who meets us on the worst night of our lives. We may not have been seeking God, but God has been seeking us. 

God has not given up on us. He is with us, and he has a good plan for us. Let us offer to him what little we have (perhaps only the stone upon which we lay our head!), and let us entrust our future to the one who has said, "I am with you ... I will not leave you" (see Matthew 28:20, Hebrews 13:5).

Like Jacob, let us awake from our slumber, wipe the sleep from our eyes, and offer grateful words of wonder and worship, "Surely, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it."

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