Surely The Lord Is in This Place

​Advent Midweek 2                                                                                        LSB #’s 901, 361, 353
Text – Genesis 28:16-17
 
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep & said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, & I did not know it.”  And he was afraid & said, “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, & this is the gate of heaven.”
 
SURELY THE LORD IS IN THIS PLACE
 
 
I know our church has a special place in your heart.  In this sacred space we retreat from the busyness of the world.   Here we sit, like Mary at Jesus’s feet, hearing the Word of God.   In the narthex & fellowship hall, we enjoy the company of brothers & sisters in Christ.   As the opening hymn said, “Oh, how blessed is this place, filled with solace, light & grace!”  (LSB 901:1)  
Then we leave, & go back to the worry-a-day world.   In a devotion, “Has God Forgotten?” a pastor wrote: “Our daughter shared a conversation she overheard.  Her 3-year-old son was at the top of the basement stairs, trying to muster courage to make the descent.  Before taking the 1st step, he said, ‘Oh Jesus, it’s awful dark down there.  You’d better hold my hand.’”[1]  
Sometimes church gives us a glimpse of heaven but then we have to go down to the stuff of our real lives.    Does Jesus make advents to you during your real world, worry-a-day week? 
Tonight, we meditate on the famous story of “Jacob’s Ladder.”  The name Jacob means “supplanter,” someone who takes something that is not rightfully his.  Jacob was a supplanter alright.  His older brother Esau was entitled to the birthright, the blessing of their father Isaac, but Jacob deceived Isaac & stole the birthright.    You can imagine how angry Esau was.  
Isaac & Rebekah decided Jacob needed to leave home, sending him to live & work for uncle Laban, Rebekah’s brother.  This was as tough as leaving home to join the military; certainly, harder than going off to college.  Your first major time away from home, your brother angry with you for good reason.   He may even try to kill you.  You’re worried.  What’s going to happen?   You’re walking for miles.  You’re all alone.   The sun sets & darkness arrives.  You find a place that looks safe.   How safe?   You’re not in a hotel where you can double lock the door.  You’re outside, animals around, a rock for a pillow.  
Does it get any more real world than that?  Jacob may not have expected an advent in his problems, but he got one.  Listen to the description in Genesis 28:
And he dreamed, & behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, & the top of it reached to heaven.  And behold, the angels of God were ascending & descending on it!  And behold, the Lord stood above it & said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father & the God of Isaac.  The land on which you lie I will give to you & to your offspring.  Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, & you shall spread abroad to the west & to the east & to the north & to the south, & in you & your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.  Behold, I am with you & will keep you wherever you go & 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 & said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, & I did not know it.”  And he was afraid & said, “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, & this is the gate of heaven.”  (28:12-17 ESV) 
 
Here’s a simple thing I wonder about.  When I put a ladder up to clean the gutters, the ladder goes from earth up.   Which way is Jacob’s Ladder going, up to heaven, so we can go to God, or does the ladder come down from heaven to earth, so God comes to us?   The Bible answers the question.  
Over a thousand years later in the same land of Israel, a bit north of the place where Jacob had his dream, something happened that helps us understand Jacob’s Ladder.  Jesus had begun His public ministry.  A man named Philip told Nathanael, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law & also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth...”  (John 1:45 ESV) 
Nathaniel was suspicious, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Shortly after, he meets Jesus face to face.  Jesus says, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.”  That caught Nathaniel off guard.  “Nathaniel said to Him, ‘How do you know me?’   Jesus answered, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’”  (John 1:46-48 ESV)   Before we came face to face, I saw you!  Whoa!   Nathanael responded, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the king of Israel!”  (John 1:49 ESV)    And now listen to this, listen with Jacob’s Ladder in mind, as Jesus answers him:
“Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe?  You will see greater things than these.’  And He said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, & the angels of God ascending & descending on the Son of Man.’” (John 1:50-51 ESV)    “Truly, truly I say to you,” marks this as a pronouncement from God:
“…angels of God ascending & descending on the Son of Man.”   What Jacob saw was a dream, but to us it is revealed as a person – Jesus Christ.  Jacob’s ladder is Jesus.  “The angels of God ascending & descending on the Son of Man.”  The title “Son of Man” comes from Daniel 7 & designates Messiah.  Jesus applies the title to Himself, here & other places in the Gospels.  
Now we can answer the question, “Does the ladder go from earth to heaven   or from heaven to earth?”   It is both.  The Son of God comes from on high to people like Jacob, people like you & me in our real world, worry-a-day lives.  He becomes our full brother, takes our sins to the cross, then as our forerunner rises & ascends back up the ladder to the Father.  
Why?  So that we can ascend to God.  “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.”  (1 Peter 3:18 ESV)    One of our Advent hymns makes this point:
Love caused Your incarnation; love brought You down to me.  Your thirst for my salvation procured my liberty.    Oh, love beyond all telling, that led You to embrace in love, all love excelling, our lost & fallen race.  (LSB 334:4)
 
Remember, angels were descending & ascending on Jacob’s Ladder.   As Jesus descends & ascends, for us & for our salvation, the angels are with Him.  When He descended & became flesh at Bethlehem, the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, & on earth peace among those who have His good will.”  (Luke 2:14)    After Jesus was baptized, He was tempted by Satan, “& the angels were ministering to Him.”  (Mark 1:13 ESV)  When Jesus was in agony at the Garden of Gethsemane, “there appeared an angel from heaven, strengthening Him.”  (Luke 22:43)   
As angels attended the Son of Man in His descent to us, angels were there for His resurrection & ascension.  When He arose, the angels were there, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here but has risen.”  (Luke 24:6 ESV)   
When He ascended, the angels promised: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.”  (Acts 1:11b ESV)    And Jesus said this about His return, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, & all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.”  (Matthew 25:31 ESV)  
St. Peter captures it well.  The descent & ascent, the sufferings & glory of Christ, what is preached to you in the Gospel, are “things into which angels long to look.”  (1 Peter 1:12 ESV)  “…Surely the Lord is in this place, & I did not know it.  …This is none other than the house of God & this is the gate of heaven.”  (Genesis 28:16-17 ESV)  
Jacob’s Ladder is an ongoing story.   The Spirit of the Lord Jesus continues to descend with God’s promises; He descends to you & me in our real world lives.  How often you & I are anxious about the journey ahead of us.  How often we think we’re alone.  Jacob heard, “Behold, I am with you & will keep you wherever you go...”  (Genesis 28:15 ESV)  
Tonight Jesus says to you, “…I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:20 ESV)   Jacob heard, “In you & your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”  (Genesis 28:14 ESV)   Jesus, the promised offspring of Jacob, gathers us & says, “…Behold,   I & the children God has given me.”  (Hebrews 2:13 ESV)   Jacob heard, “I am with you… & will bring you back to this land.”  (Genesis 28:15a ESV)    Tonight Jesus promises “…an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled & unfading, kept in heaven for you.”  (1 Peter 1:4 ESV)   As the Spirit of Jesus descends to be with you & me, the Spirit lifts our thoughts heavenward so that we anticipate our own ascension to be with Jesus in glory forever.  
Let’s be clear-headed about this.  What did Jacob have when he awoke from his dream?  In one sense, life was the same.  He was on the run, alone, but one thing made all the difference.  He had the promises of God.   So do you.  “For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ].”  (2 Corinthians 1:20 ESV)   
Jesus is the ladder between you & heaven.  The 17th-century Puritan minister, Richard Baxter, wrote: “Can your heart be in heaven & not have comfort?”[2]  
One more thing before wrapping the sermon, a practical question you might wonder about.  Does God speak to us as He spoke to the patriarchs in the OT?   Yes & no.   No, you & I do not see God.  When God did appear to the patriarchs (which, by the way, wasn’t all that often), His appearance always took different forms.  
When Abraham was sitting in front of his tent, the text last week, God came as a man.  To Jacob He came in a dream.  Next week He’ll come to Moses in a burning bush.   God took different visual forms in His appearances in the OT, but what is the same in all the appearances of God is that He speaks.  His word is the constant in all of God’s advents.  
You & I have that word in a fuller way than Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob.  “…we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns & the morning star rises in your hearts.”  (2 Peter 1:19 ESV)   Be it Sunday in public worship or in your daily devotion, Jesus descends to be with you.  
We do love to come each week to this place of worship.  Here the Spirit descends to us.  
His word comes into our ears, as we hear the Scriptures about Jesus in readings, liturgy & sermon.  Here his word comes upon us in the waters of baptism, as we gather in ongoing remembrance of our birth to newness of life, & the hope of heaven.  
Here His Supper gathers us to receive forgiveness in anticipation of our gathering in glory with all sin & sorrow forever past.  Martin Luther wrote, “Throughout the world the house of God & the gate of heaven is wherever there is the pure teaching of the word together with the sacraments.”[3]    And Jesus makes advents to you during the week as well.  
Through meditation upon the Bible, our Book of Advents, the Spirit of Jesus comes to us in every time, just as He came to Jacob & just as the three-year-old remembered Jesus’ promise to be with him, even at the top of the stairs.  
As Luther wrote: “If anyone speaks with himself & meditates on the word, God is present there with the angels; & He works & speaks in such a way that the entrance into the kingdom of heaven is open.”[4]    Yes, Advents abound!   Picture Jacob’s Ladder as you go into this week, with whatever challenges it might bring.  
“Oh Jesus, it’s awful dark down there.  You’d better hold my hand.”   Take Advent out of church & with you into your real world, worry-a-day week.  Not only is Jesus coming to you in His advents, but He is also going with you.  Amen.
 
 
 
O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;  cast out our sin, & enter in,   be born in us today.    We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;  O come to us, abide with us,  our Lord Immanuel.  Amen.  LSB 361:4.


[1] Les Bayer, ed., Devotions for the Chronologically Gifted (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 58.

[2] Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest (London: The Epworth Press, 1962), 110. 

[3] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, American Edition, vols. 1–30, ed.  Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955–1976), 5:247.  Luther’s commentary on Genesis 28:1-15 has significantly influenced this sermon.

[4] Luther’s Works, 5:251.