The Story that Shapes Us 5: A Stairway from Heaven to Earth

This podcast is brought to you by Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley, D.C., in the hope that it will draw you closer to the one who loves you most.

So years ago, when it was Susan and my first Christmas together as a married couple, we left our farm to drive to my mom and dad's farm to celebrate Christmas Eve.

Now, when we left, there was some wind, there was some snow, but we took our time and everything was going well.

It was only a short journey, it's only four and a half miles.

And so we headed out.

But about halfway through that trip, the storm got so bad that I had trouble distinguishing where the edge of the road was from the ditch.

And the last mile, it was so intense that what we had to do is I had to get out of the vehicle and walk along the edge of the road, and Susan would drive and stay just to the right of me.

And as we talked about this a few days ago, she told me that visibility got so bad at times that she couldn't see me walking in front of her, and she was worried about running into me.

I'm thankful that did not happen.

I was also very thankful when we finally saw the lights from my mom and dad's farmyard, and we pulled into that yard and we warmed up and we celebrated Christmas Eve.

Susan and I stayed overnight and then went home the next morning when the storm had cleared and all was calm and safe.

Now that memory of that night has stayed with me.

Because it's very, very unsettling to be on a path that you thought you knew, one that was familiar.

And yet things suddenly change and you become unmured, unsure of where the solid ground is.

And you have to trust that whatever you whatever step you take, the ground would hold underneath you.

That fear of losing your bearings, of not knowing where the road is anymore, is something that many of us know, even outside of blizzards.

A job changes, a relationship shifts, a diagnosis comes, a loss hits, a transition arrives that we did not choose.

And suddenly the familiar markers vanish.

And we find ourselves in a blizzard of uncertainty, inching forward and hoping that we're still on the road.

Now, across human history, human beings have had this same ache, and they've imagined that somewhere, somewhere, there must be a place where everything holds together, a center that does not move.

Many cultures call this the axis munde, the center of the world, the meeting place between heaven and earth.

Sometimes it's a mountain, sometimes it's a tree, sometimes it's a temple.

But it is always a place where the divine touches the human.

But scripture does something different.

It doesn't give us a symbol or a sacred location, it gives us a story, the story that shapes us, and it gives us a person.

And to find out more, we turn to Genesis 28, verses 10 to 22.

Genesis 28:10–22

Now, last week we saw how the Lord faithfully provided a substitute so that Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son Isaac.

And as the years went by, Isaac married Rebekah and they had twin boys, Esau and Jacob.

By custom, Esau the older should have carried on God's promise of a Messiah and had the family blessing.

But God, as he often does, chooses the overlooked and unlikely to do great things for him.

And so God told Rebekah when she was pregnant with her two sons: two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated.

One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.

God chose Jacob to carry on his promise despite Jacob's lack of favorable qualifications.

As the boys grew older, Esau became a great hunter and an outdoorsman, someone perhaps well suited to be a leader of men, whereas on the other hand, Jacob lived a quiet life and stayed at home with his mother.

Jacob's character was also terribly flawed.

Once when Esau came in from the field exhausted and hungry, Jacob took advantage of his brother and demanded Esau's birthright, the larger inheritance due to him as the eldest son, in exchange for some lentil stew.

Famished, Esau agreed.

Jacob's name means deceiver, cheater, or supplanter.

And as Esau later said, he was well named.

Sometime later, when Isaac was old and nearly blind, Jacob cooperated with his mother to steal Esau's blessing.

And when Esau found out, he threatened to kill Jacob after his father died.

After their father died.

Rebekah intervened to save Jacob by convincing Isaac to send Jacob to her homeland to find a wife.

And so Jacob fled.

He left behind everything.

Everything familiar.

His home, his parents, his security.

He carried Esau's birthright and Isaac's blessing, both obtained through deception.

But nothing more.

He was alone, exposed, and uncertain about the future.

After walking for about 65 kilometers, Jacob stopped for the night.

He found a stone and he used it for a pillow.

And he lay down under the open sky and slept.

And then God broke in.

Jacob had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on earth with its top reaching to heaven.

And the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

And even more astonishing, Jacob saw the Lord standing above that stairway, saying, 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.

This is the turning point.

Jacob, the deceiver, the runaway, the morally compromised, receives not punishment, but promise.

Not condemnation, but blessing.

Not distance, but divine nearness.

Up until this moment, Jacob had been striving to get blessings for himself.

Now God shows him that blessing is not a prize to be earned, blessing is a gift to be received.

Six times God makes himself the subject of his sentences.

I will give you, I am with you, I will watch over you, I will bring you back, I will not leave you, I have promised you.

And by the way, God is speaking, he is saying that he is the subject, Jacob is the object, God is the giver, Jacob is the receiver.

Jacob wakes up terrified and awestruck.

Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.

He sets up that pillow stone as a pillar, names the place Bethel, House of God, and makes a vow to trust in the God who has come near to him.

So what does this mean for us?

Well, deep in every human heart is the belief that we must earn the good things of life.

And in many areas, that has some truth.

Hard work often produces good results, gardens flourish with care, craftsmanship yields satisfaction, good farming practices often results in a bountiful harvest.

But for the really important things of life, things like who we are as a person and the nature of our relationship with God.

This way of thinking, often called the law of the harvest, breaks down.

And it breaks down because an honest look at ourselves will reveal cracks in our character and brokenness in our behavior, like Jacob.

We strive to gain blessings for ourselves, but our dreams turn into sand, like Jacob.

We can be building the life we thought we wanted to have, but then a sudden change happens, and we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere, like Jacob.

Our old life is behind us, our future life is not yet seen, and we find ourselves in a strange and uncomfortable in-between.

Now, psychologists call these in-between seasons of life liminality.

And it's those moments when we feel like a trapeze artist that has let go of one bar and is suspended in mid-air, trusting that someone will catch them on the other side.

Jacob was in that place.

And so are we at various points in our lives.

New jobs, moves, losses, transitions, diagnoses.

Sometimes liminality is part of the journey we choose to take toward a new and better future.

And sometimes liminality comes as a result of changes we did not choose for ourselves.

Liminality is uncomfortable, but it is essential for growth.

For just as a crab must shed its hard shell to grow, so must we, if we are going to grow, shed our hard assumptions about who we are and who God is to us.

And here is the good news.

We don't climb our way to God.

By grace, God comes to us.

We don't earn blessings.

By grace, God gives us his blessings and we only receive them.

We don't hold our lives together.

By grace, God does that for us.

By grace, God is with us all the time, but especially in our seasons of liminality.

And because God loves us, he will work through the opportunity of openness that comes in those seasons of liminality to help us to grow in godly character.

And in those times where we don't know where to turn, he will guide us on the path that will lead us toward the great and wonderful future he has in store for us.

Centuries after Jacob's dream, another man, Nathaniel, encountered Jesus of Nazareth.

When Jesus revealed that he knew Nathaniel from afar, Nathanael was amazed and declared, You are the Son of God.

Jesus replied that Nathanael would see much greater things than that.

He said, You will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

Jesus is pointing back to Jacob's dream and saying, that stairway, that connection between heaven and earth, that Axis mundi, the center of the world, that's me, Jesus is saying.

Jesus is the place where heaven touches earth.

Jesus is the center that holds all things together.

Jesus is the one who comes down to us because we cannot climb up to him.

Jesus is the axis munde, the center of the world.

And that's what Paul was communicating in his letter to the Colossian Church.

He, referring to Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

And he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

Jesus is the axis mundi, the center of the world.

And he proved it by being the divine Son of God who came into this world, became one of us, lived a perfect human life for us, and then suffered and died on a cross and rose again for us.

Jesus also proved that the God we worship, which is the same God that spoke to Jacob at Bethel, is a God of grace.

For all the victories Jesus has won for us, forgiveness for all of our sins, new life with Him that lasts forever, salvation for us and all creation.

Jesus gives all those things to us as totally free gifts.

Our only part is to receive them through faith in him.

Now the story of Jacob calls for a response from us.

What kind of a person are we going to be?

Are we going to be like Jacob before God spoke to him at Bethel or after?

Are we going to be self-centered people who focus on gathering and gaining blessings for ourselves?

Or are we going to live by grace and trust that the God who was so gracious to Jacob during his in-between time will also be gracious to us in ours.

And if your response is to live by grace and faith in God, here are three steps that can help you to do that.

First, release your efforts to earn a blessing.

Let go of the strategies, the striving, the self-saving projects.

They cannot fill the ache inside of you.

Second, make Jesus your center, your access moon day.

Trust in him to hold your life together.

Trust him to carry you through the in-between places and times.

Trust that his presence is not earned but given.

Open your hands, open your heart.

Let him speak his promises over you.

Because the God who met Jacob in the wilderness meets you too.

The God who promised Jacob, I am with you, says the same thing to you today.

Where Jesus gave that promise to us and to all his followers when he said, And surely I am with you always.

To the very end of the age.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for being the Axis Munde, the center of the world.

And we pray that by your spirit, Lord, you would help us to be our center, that immovable anchor that keeps us and carries us through all the storms of life.

Help us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on you and follow you wherever you lead.

And we pray that your love would flow through us into the world around us.

In your precious name we ask this, and all God's people said.

Amen.

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Thank you and God's blessed books.