To be a gift of God
Genesis 28 is the backdrop to today’s Gospel reading. It’s a marvelous story about Jacob:
Jacob left Beer-sheba and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, since the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down on that spot. He had a dream: a stairway was set on the ground, with its top reaching to the sky; and angels of God were going up and down on it. And there was Yahweh standing beside him and saying, “I Yahweh am the God of your forefather Abraham and the God of Isaac; the ground on which you are resting I will give to you and to your offspring…. Remember, I am with you; I will protect you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land; nor will I leave you until I have done what I promised you.”
Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Truly, Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it! Shaken, he exclaimed, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gateway to heaven!” Early next morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on its top. He named that site Bethel… (Genesis 28:10-19)
As a result of this encounter, Jacob made a pillar out of the stone on which he slept. He called that place, Bethel – the house of God. And it became something like a shrine, a holy site, a place of pilgrimage. It is most important to tell you that a thousand years later, Bethel still stood, but by then it had become corrupted and had become a place of idols and pagan worship. King Josiah, one of the good kings of Israel, destroyed it (2 Kings 23:15). Every holy place can be corrupted and turned to idolatry. That is why Jesus became the new high place, the new Bethel, the new dwelling of God, where angels would be ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John 1:51) Do you hear Jesus telling Nathanael today: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man”?
In today’s Gospel reading we see Jesus using the language of Jacob’s dream to tell Nathanael and all who read this Gospel, that he is the place of encounter with God. He is now Yahweh standing next to each of us, just as he stood next to Jacob: “I Yahweh am the God of your forefather Abraham and the God of Isaac; the ground on which you are resting I will give to you and to your offspring.” Jesus is the new meeting place of God and man. And this new meeting place does not need a building or a stone, or any kind of a marker to a particular place. The encounter with God is now everywhere. Not in Bethel, not even in Jerusalem, as Jesus said so clearly to the Samaritan woman in John 4. God is spirit. Jesus is spirit. The Epistle to the Hebrews in chapter 2 says: “but we see Jesus, for a short time made lower than the angels, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor…”
Yes, Jesus lived on earth for about 33 years. People saw him. He opened heaven to all. He is the stairway to heaven. He is the fulfilment of every dream – not just Jacob’s dream, but the dream of everyone who longs to know God. He is the universal fulfilment of every religious hope. That’s why he told Nathanael he would see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Jesus called himself the Son of Man in order to identify with us, to share our lives. But did Nathanael ever see angels ascending and descending on Jesus? Did anyone see such a thing in the 33 years that Jesus lived on earth? No, of course not. So the vision that Jesus describes for Nathanael is a spiritual vision, an image that Jesus shares with us in order to tell us that what Jacob dreamed so long ago, is now reality – but in a deeper, deeper way than Jacob could have every imagined. The God who appeared to Jacob in that dream is now among us. “God is with us” is the proclamation of the New Testament. God is among us. He walks among us. Let’s be careful not to turn Jesus into a relic of religious memory. That’s idolatry. Remember, Bethel was destroyed because it became an idol. Perhaps this is the deeper reason why we read this Gospel passage on this Sunday which celebrates the restoration of icons. Icons are beautiful and deeply spiritual, but they can also distract us from the living God, the living presence of Christ, who is not confined to a block of painted wood, but who is everywhere. Angels are ascending and descending on him right now, in the glory of the eternal kingdom and in the everyday lives of all who call him Lord and Savior.
By the way, I should tell you that Nathanael – Ναθαναήλ – נְתַנְאֵל (neṯǎn·ʾēl) gift of God (El) – hence equivalent to Θεόδωρος! Yes, Nathanael was gift of God to all who wonder like he did, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And he tells us what Philip said to him, “Come and see!” Can anything good come out of Portland? Can anything good come out of the church that meets at the corner of Park Street and Pleasant Street? Come and see! Come be a gift of God. Let that be the Lord’s invitation to you today. Amen.
(The above was preached on March 21st at Holy Trinity Church. Audio file below.)