“Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it” (Gen. 28:16).
When Jacob wakes up from sleep, in our first reading, he realizes that a world exists that he was not aware of. He’s had a powerful dream, a vision from the Lord, that tells him that the place where he’s resting is more significant that he realized. He sees a vision of angels ascending and descending on a ladder that’s set up between earth and heaven. God tells Jacob that the land where he’s resting belongs to him and his offspring: God will give him both a land and make of him a people. “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it… How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:16-17).
What Jacob experienced at Bethel is something akin to but different from simply missing the significance of what’s happening around us. That happens all the time: part and parcel of the human experience. We fail to pay attention, and to really look and listen. What are people trying to tell us that we miss because we are wrapped up in something else? We’re busy in our own heads and fail to notice the colors of the sunset or the arrival of fall in our own backyards. These days, we’re more likely to be peering into a screen than looking around and taking notice of our actual surroundings.
Missing these things, of course, is bad enough; but Jacob’s experience in our reading points to something more significant. Shame on us for not taking note of the important things our friends are telling us, or for ignoring the beauty of the world around us. Being unaware of these things is probably its own punishment. We tend to get wrapped up in ourselves and in our own needs. But what Jacob is missing is the spiritual significance of what’s around him: the real motor engine that drives the world.
Think about Jacob’s story for a moment. He’s where he is because he’s messed up his relationship with his family. He’s defrauded his brother Esau of his inheritance, and deceived his father Isaac in order to steal his blessing. He goes on to marry the wrong sister: how does something like that happen! He’s hardly a model of self-awareness. He steals from his father-in-law, and at the end can come up with no better plan than to return home and throw himself on the mercy of his brother. All in all he’s left a trail of sharp dealing and shattered relationships behind him.
But the thing that Jacob has really missed is the hand of God at work: the spiritual reality that lies behind this terrible story. What was really significant in these events was God’s intention to honor the covenant he had made with Jacob’s family, Abraham and his descendants after him. Jacob doesn’t see the angels all around him, guarding and defending him. He’s busy ignoring the message they are bringing from heaven to earth: the good news that God was with him in his exile and in his journey. He’s got no clue until God opens his eyes.
Consider for a moment the God who made heaven and earth: the real motor engine of the world. God creates and recreates all things. Jacob, in our reading today, comes to recognize that God had blessed the place where he slept; his descendant King Solomon discovered that “even heaven and the highest heaven” (1 Kgs 8:27), much less the earth, could not contain him. Consider that God became human in Jesus Christ, suffered and died for our sins, and raised us to new life in him. Consider that God the Holy Spirit “blows where he wills” (Jo. 3:8), and even takes up residence within each of us. How awesome is this place, as Jacob says; how awesome is our God.
The angels of God whom we remember today are a challenge to our imagination, inviting us to consider the world of unseen realities that lies behind our own. The ladder set up between heaven and earth opens up a world of possibility, including the unseen God who cannot be contained by the physical universe. This world of possibility includes a God who becomes human and can be seen in the person of Jesus Christ. In his death and resurrection there is new life for us that goes beyond this world. The Holy Spirit fills us now with the unseen presence and power of God. God’s holy angels expand our vision and fill our minds with new possibilities. As we come to this altar and receive Christ’s Body and Blood, the sign of the unseen reality of his presence, let us pray: Open our eyes, O Lord; open our eyes.
