"I am the ladder": Reflections on Genesis 28:10-19
In Genesis 28:10-19, Jacob is fleeing from his brother Esau after cheating him out of both his birthright and blessing. The fugitive Jacob lies down to sleep in a place called Luz. There, he dreams of “a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven” and sees “the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”
In the midst of Jacob’s crowded dream, God appears next to him and utters a promise that is repeated multiple times in Genesis: “all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”
This promise, first made to Jacob’s grandfather in Genesis 12, echoes throughout Scripture. In fact, the Apostle Paul picks up on these words in Galatians and gives them a new title, calling the promise "the gospel in advance” (Galatians 3:8).
Although the content of Jacob’s dream is certainly startling, the real surprise comes when he wakes.
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” (Genesis 28:16)
Here he is in some dangerous place, sleeping outside with a rock for a pillow, a child of promise but also deceptive cheat, fleeing for his life. No wonder he’s surprised God finds him there.
Eighteenth Century cleric and abolitionist John Newton distills the message of Jacob’s dream encounter in his poem "Jacob's ladder." In the poem, Newton places himself and us, the readers of Jacob's story, at the scene of the encounter between God and Jacob.
We are at the ladder's foot,
Every hour, in every place
They who know the Saviour's name,
Are for all events prepared
Every spot is holy ground,
God is there - and he's their home.
The poem has the potential to sharpen our reading not only of Jacob’s story, but also our own lives. Newton’s rendering of this dream encounter alerts us to an array of rich possibilities for contemplation. Every spot is holy ground. (If that sounds too spiritual, try reciting this poem to yourself at the DMV.)
Fascinatingly, this bizarre dream makes another appearance in the first chapter of John’s gospel. Its recurrence is odd not only because the dream is somewhat obscure, but also because, unlike the other gospel writers, John uses direct references to the Old Testament sparingly. John is full of Old Testament allusions, but rarely does he refer to passages directly. For this reason, we should perhaps take special note when he does choose to use a direct reference. The episode in question begins with the words,
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me” (John 1:43).
After Jesus calls Philip, Philip invites Nathanael to join him with what's perhaps the most winsome invitation to discipleship in Scripture: "Come and see." This invitation is dripping with irony because, as it turns out, Jesus has already seen Nathanael before the two meet.
"I saw you under the fig tree," Jesus says, “And if you think that's something, wait until you see heaven opened and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
At first glance, this seems like an odd thing for Jesus to say to Nathanael when they first meet. Jesus makes several "I am" statements later in John's gospel: I am the door, I am the vine, I am the light of the world, I am the bread of life, and so on. “I am the ladder” isn’t among them. However, Jesus identifies himself as the site where angels ascend and descend, ushering Nathanael back to the events described in Genesis 28. “That’s right, Nathanael. Remember Jacob's wild dream about a ladder to the heavens when he was running for his life from his murderous older brother? I am that ladder."
There's an often-scrutinized tendency among the Church Fathers to see Jesus everywhere in the Old Testament. (We should hasten to add that looking for Jesus in the Old Testament is a healthy impulse for Christians who read Scripture discerningly. That said, the Fathers are on another level.) They examine every nook and cranny of the text, sifting through each story and image to find Christ. This unrelenting search for Jesus is one reason they are so revealing to read. They leave no stone unturned.
Literally, in fact.
Commenting on this passage from Genesis 28, 4th Century theologian St. Jerome says,
"When Jacob was in flight from his brother, in Mesopotamia, he came to Luz, and there to rest, Scripture says, he placed a stone under his head. The stone under his head was Christ."
Jerome goes on to explain what he means, and it yields, at least in my opinion, a beautiful reading of an otherwise obscure detail in Genesis 28. But still. The stone pillow in this story is so seemingly inconsequential as to be comical. Not to Jerome, however. To him, the stone is Christ.
Not to be outdone by Jerome, St. Chromatius, 4th Century Bishop of Aquileia, 4th Century, riffs on Jesus' self-identification as the ladder, calling attention to several dimensions of Christ’s presence in (and on top of?) the text of scripture:
“The ladder fixed on the ground and reaching heaven is the cross of Christ, through which the access to heaven is granted to us, because it actually leads to heaven . . . . And therefore we know well that the ladder is the symbol of the cross of Christ. As, in fact, the steps are set between two uprights, so the cross of Christ is placed between the two testaments and keeps in itself the steps of the heavenly precepts, through which we climb to heaven.
One could perhaps see how readings of the Old Testament like these could lead a bit off the beaten path. We’re a long way from Luz by the time Chromatius finishes his thought.
Regardless of the circuitous route they take to discover Christ in Genesis 28, the church fathers arrive in the right place. In John 1, Jesus himself announces that he was indeed there!
In John’s telling, Jesus pulls back the cosmic curtain to reveal that he is as present to Nathanael as he was to a renegade younger brother estranged from his family and in need of a reminder of a forgotten promise. Talk about the gospel in advance!
But the question remains: If Christ does indeed appear in Genesis 28, why does he choose to refer to this dream imagery in particular at the moment of Nathanael's calling?
Perhaps Jesus wants the episode of Jacob's encounter with God to be fresh in Nathanael's mind.
Perhaps Jesus is inviting Nathanael to reconsider that original promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through the lens of Jesus’ bodily presence.
Perhaps he wants Nathanael to recall what Jacob saw in the dream so that he can thus recall what Jacob heard: “I am with you and I will guard you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you.”
All of these are possible reasons, but there's one other detail that makes Jacob’s somewhat obscure dream the ideal image to present to Nathanael in John 1. When Philip first invites Nathanael to "come and see," Nathanael responds to Philip by saying, essentially, "Yeah right. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" In other words, surely God cannot be at work in Nazareth, of all places!
When Jesus refers a skeptical Nathanael to the content of Jacob's dream, he's also pointing back to Jacob's revelation upon waking that "the Lord is in this place, and I didn’t know it.” The Messiah is present even in Nazareth, the place from which Nathanael can imagine no good thing coming. He has been there all along, and Nathanael did not know.
Jacob and Nathanael, separated by centuries, are both in need of the same reminder.
Recognizing this connection, Malcolm Guite concludes his poem entitled "Nathanael's epiphany" with the profound line, "Jacob’s dream becomes Nathanael’s waking."
Whether we find ourselves under the stars in Luz or the fig tree in Galilee (or even the DMV), perhaps there’s a similar epiphany available to you and I. It’s hard for me to remember too. One of the potential joys of forgetting God’s presence as often as we do is the frequency which we might be reminded of it. Tying the stories of Jacob and Nathanael together yields some helpful places to look for God’s presence and activity.
God is present and active among those who are far from the safety and comfort of home.
God is present and active among those who are displaced or fleeing for their lives.
God is active when we are inactive. (Jacob is, after all, asleep.)
God is present and active before we recognize his presence and activity.
God is even present and active in the places that we have trained ourselves not to look for his presence and activity.
Like Jacob, we will forget each of these truths, and like Nathanael, we will overlook them. Thankfully, God will have seen us before it occurs to us that we have lost sight of him.