Genesis 28:10-17
Science tends to turn our world upside down. Think of the different possible worlds into which
we have been lead by Democritus, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein and Heisenberg. Whew! After
seeing “The Elegant Universe” on public television and hearing him describe the basics of
superstring theory (fascinating stuff!), I picked up a copy of Brian Greene’s The Fabric of the
Cosmos. Here’s the lead paragraph to Chapter Three, “Relativity and the Absolute”:
Some discoveries provide answers to questions. Other discoveries are so deep that they
cast questions in a whole new light, showing that previous mysteries we misperceived
through lack of knowledge. ... you see that the previous mysteries are not solved; instead,
they’re rendered irrelevant.
One minute, please. Whenever someone – a modern scientist or a philosopher or whatever – tells
us that advances in his or her discipline render the questions of previous generations “irrelevant”
this is usually a red flag indicating that it is time to freeze frame and engage our critical
reasoning. After all, what we are seeking is not “scientific progress” as an end in itself, but
knowledge for the sake of increased security in the shifting flux of reality. In fact, don’t you
think that our pursuit of knowledge is always the pursuit of security? We want to discover
something that will stay put, so that we can tether ourselves to it.
Some five centuries before God’s birth in Bethlehem the Presocratic philosopher-scientist
Heraclitus explained, “All is in flux. You both can and cannot step into the same river twice.” At
the same time, he launched the Western quest for safety and security by teaching people to “listen
not to me, but to the logos,” an abiding principle upon which reality (he speculated) must rest.
Heraclitus also observed, “The way up and the way down are one and the same.” Change and
decay in all around we see – tsunamis overrun us, mud slides, cancer afflicts us, people we love
pass away – but there must be a Way, an up and down Truth, that is the same yesterday, today
and forever. What Heraclitus could only speculate about I am here to proclaim to you this
morning.
The Way Up and the Way Down are One and the Same Person
To begin, let’s consider the passage from our text, “Jacob came to a certain place.” As Luther
points out, Moses uses an extraordinary Hebrew word here to describe what happened. Rather
literally he does not say that Jacob came to a certain place, but that the “place met him.” A few
chapters earlier, this same word (it’s pagah) was used to talk about intercession. “Intercede for
me that he may sell me the field” (23:8). In other words, while Jacob was pursuing plan B after
having deceived his dad in order to defraud his older twin brother Esau of his inheritance, God
invaded. He interceded. He interposed. He interdicted. Heaven caught up to Jacob. God ripped
and tore His way through the fabric of space-time and struck up a superstring chord of His own: a
stairway linking Heaven and earth, fiery winds ascending that stairway, ministering spirits
descending on that stairway, the LORD Himself situated at the top of that stairway.
It’s tempting to make this into a lesson on time management. You know, something such as is
suggested by our phrase, “Lord willing” or Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s reminder to make one’s plans
“under the Jamesian condition.” You see, Jacob the Heel-Grabber, had his action plan in mind,
and God utterly interrupted him. But time management is not the center of our text at all. The
central issue here is the meaning of the Stairway, who, it turns out, is both Jacob’s LORD and
Jacob’s many times great grandchild.
The Way Up and the Way Down Is One and the Same Person
So, between earth and Heaven, “angels ascending and descending” on it – what exactly is Jacob’s
Ladder? The ladder is Jesus Himself. You may remember that, early in His public ministry,
Jesus said to Nathaniel, Philip and company that the time would come when they would “see the
heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John
1:51). Jesus’ interpretation is decisive. As Augustine would put it, the New Testament lies latent
in the Old, the Old is made blatant in the New. More simply: it’s always all about Jesus (see John
5:39).
Jesus is the LORD God at the top of the stair. He is the divine One who alone is capable of
bridging the gap between Creator and creation. He is also the Son of Man (the Hebrew locution
for “human”). Angels ride on His back, in His train. He is born in Bethlehem and an army of
angels deploys to blanket the hillsides. He is tempted in the wilderness for forty days and, before
you can say “Paradise Regained”, angels are right there, ministering to Him. In dark Gethsemane
He prays and sweats blood and an angel is right there, to strengthen Him. He shatters death itself
and at His grave Easter Sunday, what do we find? That’s right, two angels of God, one of them
expressing the shock and awe Gospel: “He is not here. He has risen, just as He said.” From
Heaven to earth they come. Back to Heaven. Back to earth. Always in sync with Jesus. Behold
Jesus “The Escalator” Christ. But we are not at the exact heart of Moses’ text quite yet.
Do you know C.S. Lewis’ essay “Meditation in a Toolshed”? Lewis invites us to picture
ourselves in a toolshed on a bright summer day. It’s dark in here. We can see a beam of light
streaming into the shed from a crack above the door. A shaft of light, dust moats swirling. But
only by stepping into the shaft of light will we ever see the sun and sky and clouds that are really
there, the ultimate reality outside the dark shed. It’s a modern, Christian version of Plato’s Cave.
Lewis suggests this as a way to appreciate a fundamental problem. In our scientific age we
assume that things can only be known objectively, that we need a scientists to show us, for
example, what “being in love” really is, objectively. But this is like standing back and studying
the beam of light from the darkness of the shed. It’s the young man who is in love with a young
woman – not the scientist – who really knows what love is, from the inside. This only way to
know Jesus the Way is from the inside. So, the crucial question is, how do we get inside? This
leads us to Christ’s church on earth.
Not everyone who says, “The church, the church, let me tell you how to shape the modern
church!” is working from within the Light of truth. Look, churches are the places where people
gather around the Gospel in Word and Sacrament (these are the marks, the defining
characteristics of the church). We could say that churches are where Heaven meets us, where He
interdicts, intercedes and intersects. Churches are places where Jacob’s Ladder personally
invades the hurly-burly of life and death and change and loss to rip open the heavens and come to
us through the designated means of grace.
This means that we in the church ought always to be about the business of conducting free tours
of Jacob’s Ladder in our sermons, lessons and plans – if, that is, we are undertaking these things
in sincere obedience to Christ and the apostolic Word. Sermons lacking in Christology are
cacophony. Calls for “change in the church” (an odd phrase to Lutheran ears) that fail to call for
repentance and a return to the means of grace will inevitably mutate into calls to change the
church. At the end of Tractatus Wittgenstein says, “My propositions are elucidatory in this way:
he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through
them, on them, over them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up
on it.).” This is good Zen teaching. Perhaps it is good teaching in general to tell you to forget
your professor’s formulations once you have succeeded in reaching the truth of a given subject.
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The Way Up and the Way Down Is One and the Same Person
But it is exactly the opposite in Christ’s church. The moment we have thrown away the Ladder,
we have failed.
After that pastoral caution, let me conclude as winsomely as possible. God’s angels, those
ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit eternal salvation, ascend and descend on
Jesus the Ladder, but we have a different relationship with Him. We don’t merely ascend on
Him, we commune with Him. The Way up and the Way down is one and the same. So far, so
good. But Jesus the Way is also the second Person of the Trinity and He is a fully human and
fully divine person. This means that the Way up and the Way down is one and the same Person.
One has to be in the beam of light – you have to be in the Light, “in Christ,” as the apostles have
it – in order to know this.
This is the reason that the means of grace – the Lord’s Supper, for instance – are simultaneously
known to be utterly indispensable within the church, but are essentially unknown and often
misconstrued outside Christ’s church.
Still, by His undeserved grace, here we are, in this living relationship with Christ and one another
via Baptism, Absolution, the Scriptures and the Supper. On the night He was betrayed, Jacob’s
Ladder told us, “Take and eat, this is My body” and “Take and drink, this is My blood.” In bread
and wine, with bread and wine, under bread and wine the Word is given. God intervenes, today.
God intercedes, for us twenty-first century persons. The same unchanging, utterly dependable
God who once ripped open the heavens above Bethel and the heavens above Bethlehem to
intercede for all, has bridged the chasm between the valley of the shadow and Heaven personally,
for us.
Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup, we are welcomed into the Light by the Light
Himself. With cherubim swooshing up the stairs in adoration, and seraphim streaking down the
stairs to serve those who will inherit eternal salvation, Jesus comes to us, quietly puts His arms
around us and sits with us on the stairway as if He has all the time in the world just for us, and
simply says, “Listen. You’re weary and burdened because everything is in flux, but I am the
same, yesterday, today and forever. Have a seat. Come to Me. Find your rest and security in
Me. Remember, I did not become an incarnate angel. Remember, I fused My divine being with
human being for all eternity so that you, a human being, could be safe and secure with Me
forever. Here, this is my body and blood given and shed for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.
Everything is going to be alright. In fact, it already is.”
Rev. Dr. Gregory P. Schulz
WLC Chapel
23 February 2005
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