Genesis 28, 10 through 22. Here at the Shore Harvest Presbyterian Church, we believe the Bible to be the only infallible rule for faith and for practice. And that means that if we want to know what to think about the future, what to believe about the future, we have to know this book. And if we want to know how to rightly worship the God who is in control of that future, we have to know this book. For how we think, how we believe, and how we live, we must know the Bible. So hear now the word of the Almighty, beginning in Genesis 28, verse 10. And I will be stopping to make some comments along the way. Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran, and he came to a certain place. And as we will see shortly, the name of the place is known to our narrator, but he omits it here, referring only to a certain place. Because the significance of this place is not in its past, but in its present and future. And so the place is unknown to us. Now Jacob came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set upon the earth. and the top of it reached to heaven. Most commentators would prefer that ladder was translated as staircase, which would better accommodate the two lanes of angelic traffic that Jacob's about to see. Also, a staircase would resemble the pagan ziggurats that were so common at this time. Man's effort to reach to heaven and reached to God. And as we will see later, that may also be significant. So whether ladder or staircase, Jacob has seen this. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it. We generally don't want to refer to a baby as an it. Why? Well, babies are persons, aren't they? And it is impersonal. In English, we have these personal pronouns, he or she. Hebrew, however, does not. It has just the one pronoun. So there in verse 13, where it reads, it could possibly be translated, legitimately be translated as he. That is the Lord stood not above it, but the Lord stood above him. Meaning the Lord stood on the ground above the prone Jacob. Now, why do I point this out? Well, I want to try to moderate our expectations. For many who preach this and read this go into great detail about the phenomenal overwhelming symbolism of God at the top of the staircase. The problem is we're not sure that's where he is. And I will also point out it's pretty amazing profound symbolism if God is on the earth standing right next to Jacob. Either way, the significance here is not God's location, but his revelation to Jacob. And that's where we will keep our focus. God showed himself to Jacob and said, I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, 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.' Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." God is, of course, in every place. Yet the manifestation and experience of God's presence is not the same in all places and times. God's ubiquity does not mean uniformity. Keep in mind, the very same Jesus who said, lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth, is also the same Jesus who said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with you. Jesus allowed for his presence to be manifest differently in different times and different places. His presence is absolute. The realization of that presence is not. This is one of the reasons the communion table that we celebrate today is so important. It manifests Jesus' eminence in a tangible way that the doctrine of omnipresence alone cannot. Jacob has awakened to realize that God has made his presence known uniquely in that place. And he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God. And this is the gate of heaven. Sadly, skateboarders and stoners have kind of drained the word awesome of its impact. Maybe in your mind, insert a word like dreadful or fearful, or if you're familiar with some more archaic English, use the word awful. Jacob's response here includes more than a little fear and trembling, but more on that later. Verse 18, so early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on top of it. That is, he anointed it. This anointing will become so important in the religion of Israel that her savior will become known as the anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ. He anointed the stone. He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at first. Beth is Hebrew for house, L means God, Bethel is the house of God. Then Jacob made a vow saying, 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 give a full 10th to you. Let's pray. Holy Spirit of God, author of this text, reveal it to us. Make it known to us. Just as you, God, made yourself known to Jacob in that dream, make yourself known to us through this, your word. Let my words be faithful and consistent with your message. And if I say anything that is out of accord with what you wanted, may it be quickly forgotten, stricken from our minds, so that you and you alone are known this morning. We pray this in and through Christ. Amen. Life is a journey. I think most of us realize that. And on that journey, there are times of utter loneliness. I'm not talking about solitude. I crave, as many of you, I know you do, I crave a certain amount of solitude, you know, in a deer blind with no one else in sight, nothing around but the sound of the wind in my ears. That's beautiful. That's restful. That's peaceful. But I'm not talking about solitude. I'm talking about loneliness. Loneliness is not beautiful, nor is it restful. Think, perhaps, of that first night in the college dorm freshman year. Mom and dad helped you set everything up. They took you out to dinner. They gave you big, tear-filled hugs. And then they drove home. Home. You laid awake that night, lonely, missing home, missing mom and dad. Jacob is missing home. missing mom and dad, probably even reflecting longingly on all the happy childhood memories of playing with his brother Esau. Esau, what did I do? Look where I am. Look what's happening in my life. How did I get here? All because I cheated my brother Esau. Jacob's loneliness, though, is on a whole other plane from that first night in the college dorm. You see, you may have been lonely that night, but it came about as a result of progress, of advancement along life's journey. Yes, Jacob's mother and father gave him big, tear-filled hugs as he left, and yes, he left, at least ostensibly, to find a wife, to advance his life. But Isaac, his father, had secured a wife from the same city without stepping one foot away from Abraham's tent. Jacob's situation is not advancement on the journey of life, like going off to college was. Jacob's journey is a step in the wrong direction, and it's his fault. When life's journey takes a difficult turn because of ourselves, well, that's a whole nother level of loneliness. My own life's journey took such a dark and lonely turn the day I cleaned out my office after being fired from that job. I had a wife at home and four children under the age of 12, and I had no job. And not because of downsizing, not because they eliminated my position. And I imagine that those are difficult ways to lose a job, but that's not why I lost mine. I lost my job because they didn't want me in that position. Like Jacob, my life's journey took an unexpected turn because of choices I had made. of behaviors I executed. And that produces a profound sense of loneliness as you question everything. What have I done? Where did I go wrong? There were more than a few nights that though Becky was in bed right next to me, and that though the kids were only one room away, I was utterly alone. Some of you have been through divorces. There may not be a more dramatic turn in life journey than that. And for all of the his fault, her fault arguments, at the end of the day, you're alone, staring at the ceiling thinking, what could I have done differently? I never thought my life would turn out like this. I never imagined being here now. Where did things go wrong? and what's wrong with me. Maybe for you it was a rupture in a valued friendship. Maybe it's something else altogether that I haven't even imagined. And if this feeling of utter loneliness has not befallen you, then either you are under the age of 40 or you need to get down on your knees and thank God every single day. For this is life's journey, and it comes to all of us sooner or later. The choices we make when we go wrong lead to upheaval in life and can leave us feeling utterly alone. And that's how Jacob is feeling right now. I think most of us, I think most of you would agree, probably, that there is just something about this story that kind of gives that sense of loneliness. but I think we should nail it down so that we don't move forward on unsure footing. Let's pin down the justification for that sense of loneliness. So first of all, there is his destination. When Jacob leaves home, it's because Rebecca has asked Isaac to send the young man to Paddan Aram to find a wife. Just look back up at verse seven of the same chapter. Here he's not headed to Paddan Aram, but he's headed to Heron. Now, these are not two different places, but two different names for the same place. If I tell you that over spring break, we're going to head to DC, and then you talk to Becky and she says, hey, over spring break, we're taking the kids and going to Washington, y'all understand. That's what's going on here. But our narrator has referred to it four times within the last few verses as Pat and Arrow. Why now the switch to Haran? Because I doubt any of you, like myself, would connect Pat and Aram to Abraham. But we do connect Haran to Abraham. You see, Jacob is retracing grandfather Abraham's steps. Abraham came from Haran to Canaan. Jacob is going from Canaan to Haran. He is quite literally going in the wrong direction. And our narrator wants us to know that. And unless we're tempted to say, well, yeah, okay, but he was going there to get a wife. His father Isaac got a wife from exactly the same town, and again, never stepped one foot outside of Abraham's tent. There was no need for Jacob to go there to get a wife. We know why he's going. The pursuit of a wife is merely a cover story, and we know that. He's running from Esau. You see, all this sibling rivalry that's been bubbling up between the two of them, Esau has won. Esau has won. It's Esau who gets to live in the comfort of the, in the proximity of the parent, Isaac, that he loves. Jacob is leaving behind his beloved mother, Rebecca. It's Esau who gets to enjoy all the phenomenal wealth of Isaac. Jacob is sleeping on a stone. It's Esau who gets to stay home. Jacob is on the run. Jacob's life journey is headed in the wrong direction, and it's his fault. Jacob is running away from the promised land, away from his family and the people of God. And the narrator brings that to our attention by designating Jacob's destination not as Paddan Aram, but as Haran, Abraham's ancestral home. So one bit of literary evidence for this loneliness that we kind of intuitively felt was that our narrator points to how Jacob is leaving the promised land. Secondly, Jacob's loneliness is suggested by the double reference to darkness. Verse 11, Jacob stayed there that night because the sun had set. Remember, writing was incredibly expensive back then. So there are no wasted words. And in fact, we have seen how our storyteller, our narrator, tends to be very terse and concise. And here he repeats himself. Had he said night, we would have assumed the sun had set. Had he said the sun was set, we'd assumed it was night. But he says both to drive home the point that darkness has befallen Jacob. Jacob has walked in to what one poet called the dark night of the soul. He is beset by all of the spiritual darkness that the imagery around him alludes to. We are to see Jacob as alone, or at least we are to understand that he sees himself as alone. And that kind of brings us to perhaps the most important aspect of this storytelling. Where is Jacob's entourage? This is the son of a very wealthy man. Jacob is, in effect, the prince of a small nation. Are we to suppose that Rebecca, who dotes on Jacob, she convinced Isaac to send her beloved son away, and then she said to her husband, send him away with nothing and no one. Be sure that he goes alone and empty-handed. There is no chance that is how Rebecca sent Jacob on his way. He's going to have armed escort. Traveling back then was dangerous. He probably has one or two personal servants along with him. This is a group of probably at least 10 people. And he's wealthy. He'd have a tent. And our author says nothing of any of that. And with that brilliant and simple omission, he paints a picture of a man alone. The very fact that this wealthy Jacob is not sleeping in a tent suggests that for whatever reason, he has wanted to get away from the camp. They've set up camp. He's walked out somewhere away from it to be alone in his loneliness. This story, in three different ways, supports the intuitive feel we had of the loneliness of Jacob. We are not on certain footing to say that this is a man experiencing loneliness. And so like a newly fired or newly divorced or newly traumatized person, Jacob is in his utter aloneness reflecting on what brought him to this predicament. And it's him. Jacob's journey has taken the turn. It's taken because of Jacob's choices. Had he done right by his brother Esau, he would not be in this situation. If rather than trying to steal that which God had promised him anyway, if he had just walked in faith, done the right thing, and trusted God, it all would have worked out and he would still be at home. Jacob's dark night of the soul has been of his own making. Jacob fully deserves what is happening to him. He's made his bed, metaphorically and literally. and he must lie in it now. And God appears. You know, in the Bible, the coming of the Lord is almost always a negative thing, a thing of judgment, an action to be feared, to be dreaded, to be avoided. Across the prophets, the coming of the Lord is a threat, It is to instill the fear of the Lord. It warns sinners of God's condemnation and the accompanying devastation which they deserve. The prophetic pronouncement of the Lord's coming was rarely hopeful and usually dreadful. It's hard to imagine that Jacob's first thought was, oh good, heaven has opened and there's God standing over me. You know, the prophet Isaiah is portrayed as a good man. Unlike the prophets Elijah and Jeremiah, there's really nothing negative ever recorded, said, written, even suggested about the prophet Isaiah. And yet, when God was revealed to him in the temple, did he say, oh good, it's God? Woe to me, I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. The God of angel armies, as we sang earlier. St. John was taken into heaven by the Spirit. He was invited into the presence of God, and yet when he comes into contact with the divine, he falls on his face as though dead. And Peter, at the shore of Galilee's sea, When through a miraculous catch of fish, Jesus reveals to Peter his divinity, Peter doesn't say, oh, good, it's God. He says, go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinner. When the sky opened above Jacob, he did not say, oh, good, it's God. Rather, like Isaiah, John, Peter, and every other who's encountered the Holy One of Israel, Jacob's sin came rushing to Jacob's mind. And he thought, well, this is what I deserve. God has come to strike me dead, sending his angels down to execute his judgment. And I deserve it. I am a liar. I am a cheat. I'm a scoundrel. And to top it all off, I just used the Lord's name to seal a lie to my father. I lied to my earthly father and did so by using the name of my heavenly father in vain. What a wretched man am I. I deserve whatever misery these angels. There is no account anywhere in scripture of a human being encountering the divine and not coming to grips with their own sin. Jacob did not lie on that ground and say, oh good, it's God. On the night your divorce was finalized, on the night you cleaned out your office after being fired, would you have wanted God to return that very moment and find you like that? I didn't want that. I didn't want failure to be the last thing I did upon this earth, although it's looking increasingly like that's gonna be what happens. In that moment, brought on at least in part by my own choices, A visit from God was not what I wanted. It's not what would have felt good, or at least in my own estimation would have felt good. But Jacob's vision in the night is a vision of comfort and care. The word angel in both the Old Testament Hebrew and later in the New Testament Greek, the word angel means messenger. And they are said to be ascending the staircase. They're taking messages to heaven, to God. Like those angels that we read about in Zechariah 1 in our Old Testament reading. What do those angels do? They reported back to God about the condition of the earth. Here we have angels ascending the staircase, going to God, taking a message to him. It is a visualization of God's omniscience. He knows everything. He knows what's going on. He is aware. And while Jacob probably did not grasp that during the dream, I think it's a safe bet that he reflected back on this dream pretty often. And eventually he came to understand, God knows my situation. Here I am alone, sleeping on a rock and behold, God's angels are taking a report of this to him. I may be alone, but it's not as if my loneliness has gone unnoticed by God. Dear sister, whatever pain you're experiencing on life's journey, whatever the hurt is in your life, you may not actually see Jacob's ladder over your bed at night, But it's there. Word of your situation has gone up to heaven. God knows what is happening to you. He is aware. Take comfort. Though lonely, you are not alone. Though feeling forgotten, you are not unknown. God is aware. His angels are reporting to him every moment. And Jacob saw angels, messengers, descending, God's word coming to him, God's message coming down from heaven to earth. Brother, in the dark night of your soul, when life's journey takes you in the wrong direction as it was taking Jacob, come to church. Receive God's word to you. It's so astounding how many of us, in the dark times of our lives, flee the church, we're embarrassed. We don't want to have to face the others in the midst of our fallenness. But the picture here is of God's word coming down from heaven to be of comfort to the very messed up Jacob. It is precisely in the dark night of the soul that we need the church, the word of God, more than And notice that unlike the ziggurats built by the pagans, unlike the Tower of Babel, this stairway is not built by man. We cannot reach up to God. Rather, God opens heaven and extends the staircase to earth. It is God's will that there be a way to connect to him. And it will not come by your efforts to reach him. And so angels take word of Jacob's plight to God, and angels bring the word of God down to Jacob from God. And what is that word from God to Jacob? Sinner, blasphemer, prepare to face your punishment. Look at verses 13, 14, and 15. I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. And you can just hear Jacob thinking, yes, yes, I know who you are. For only my grandfather's God could open heaven like this. So how much trouble am I in? The land on which you lie. I know, I know I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be leaving the promised land. I should not be fleeing the place to which you sent grandpa and where you kept my father. I will give to you. and to your offspring. Wait, what? Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth. Well, that's the promise you made to grandfather. And you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. That's more than you said to grandpa Abraham. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. I'm not in trouble for leaving, but rather you're going with me. And I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Can kind of imagine Jacob's excitement that next morning. When he springs out of bed and with tears of joy and comfort and peace, he worships. He takes that pillow and he sets it up as a pillar, anointing it with oil, marking it as a visual reminder of God's goodness to him. And Jacob responded to the word of God, as we all do. In his response, we see in verses 20 through 22, it can be a little confusing. See, if we don't read it with the right tone, we get the wrong idea about Jacob's response. You see, Jacob says, if God will, and we ask ourselves, is Jacob doubting God? You know, well, I'm not sure Yahweh will come through, but if he does, is Jacob bartering with God in an almost foxhole type manner? Lord, if you get me out of here, I'm going to suggest to you that you should not read it in either of those ways. In fact, I'm going to tell you that the way to read this is perhaps the first time through, substitute the word sense in place of the word if. Look at the parallels. I kind of jumped ahead of myself. Look at the parallels between verses 15 and 20. In verse 15, God said, I am with you. And in verse 20, Jacob said, if God will be with me. In verse 15, God said, I will keep you. And in verse 20, Jacob said, if God will keep me. In verse 15, God said, I will bring you back to this land. And in verse 21, Jacob said, if I will come again to my father's house. In verse 15, God said, I will not leave you. In verse 21, Jacob said, the Lord shall be my God. Jacob's response carefully parallels God's restatement of the covenant. Jacob wasn't expressing uncertainty when he said, if the Lord should do such and such a thing. Instead, he is expressing response. Sense. Since God will be with me, he will be my God. Since God is going to keep me, He will be my God. If you prefer, add the word well in front of each if. Well, if God is going to bring me back to this land, well, if God is not going to leave me, Jacob is not expressing doubt and he's not bartering with God. Rather, he's affirming his intent to live by this covenant. God has expanded the sense of the covenant given to him beyond even what was given to Abraham. And so Jacob does what not even Abraham is recorded to have done. He responds. He affirms. He gives his statement of faith back to God. He says to God, agreed. I'm on board, Lord. I'm in. Since all of these great promises are mine, Yahweh is going to be my God. And I suppose in that sense, Jacob is something of a deal-maker, but his deal is not, first, God, you must do this. Rather, his deal is, since, God, you are doing all of this. And he responds with what he, you know, his promises to serve God, to worship him, to give a tenth, all of the things that we see there. This is very different than the deal-making earlier in his life. where he says to his brother Esau, if you'll give me my birthright, give me your birthright, I will give you my stew. This is a response to, wow, God has done amazing things and is promising phenomenal things to me. I'm going to respond in this way. This really is the beginning of the life of sanctification. Not of earning salvation, but of responding to it. And we will see how that plays out in Jacob's life in the weeks to come. And so the word to us today, the word to you, brother and sister, is that whatever the condition of your spiritual life, and this assumes that you have life through the spirit, whatever the condition of your spiritual life, the gospel of God to you is to what it was to Jacob. Jacob's journey was heading in the wrong direction, and it was his fault. But God comes not with condemnation, or even for that matter with instruction, but rather with reassurance and promise and hope. Jacob's journey was heading in the wrong direction, but God says, I will bring you back. I will make it right in the end. Jacob's journey was one of loneliness, and God says, I am with you. In those ways, Jacob's journey was not all that different from ours. And neither was Jacob's hope or Jacob's God. Your flaws and faults and sins notwithstanding, you are his and he is yours. Whatever the dark night of your soul, God sets this table before us and says, we're still family. We still eat together. In this table, Jesus says, this is the cup of the new covenant. At each chameleon, the covenant is renewed just as it was being renewed here with Jacob. Kind of makes you wish we did it every week, because you don't want to have to like, what if I have a bad week and a week we don't have chameleon, and oh, am I going to? But the reminder here is that this is a renewal of the covenant. And it comes not because you've had a good week and earned it. It comes in the midst of life's journey, even when that journey is headed the wrong way. God's word to us at this table is what it was to Jacob. I am with you until all that is promised is reality. In response to Nathaniel's doubts in our New Testament reading, Jesus points to this very passage in Genesis. And he says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angel of God ascending and descending on Jacob's ladder. No, on the son of man. And just in case you are unfamiliar with Jesus and how he talks, let me be clear. That was his favorite designation for himself. That's what he called himself, was the son of man. Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on me. News of your situation, of your life's journey ascends to the heavenly Father upon Jesus. And the good news of God's covenant renewal with you descends from the Father to you on Jesus. He says, I am Jacob's ladder. I'm the opening between heaven and earth. I'm the one whom God lowered from above that you might have access to him. The angels which ministered to Jacob were for him on a ladder. Jesus says, I am that ladder and God's ministry comes through me. descending to you upon the Son of Man. Let's pray. God, thank you for this profound word of encouragement, that as we find ourselves in dark times, lonely times, times where we are fleeing because of bad choices we've made, let us be reminded of your encouraging word to our ancient brother Jacob. that you have opened heaven so that news of us can come to your throne and the good word that you have for us can come down. Thank you that over the course of time you made clear that this was through Jesus of Nazareth, that it's in him we have access to heaven. And it's through him that we can go there with our cares. And it is upon him that your good news of comfort descends to us. And so we pray this in his name.