Heaven Opened

A young man lies down alone on bare, rocky ground. No tent. No fire worth the name. Just a stone under his head and the cold stars overhead. He is running away. And tonight, heaven is about to open above him.

His name is Jacob, grandson of Abraham, son of Isaac. And he is in trouble of his own making. He has tricked his older twin brother Esau out of their father's blessing. Esau is so furious he has vowed to kill him. So Jacob's mother sends him away, far north to her brother's family in Haran, the same town Abraham once left. Jacob sets out from Beersheba, walking alone. After a long day, the sun goes down. He comes to a certain place in the hill country, takes one of the stones lying about, puts it under his head, and lies down to sleep. He has nothing. He has deserved nothing. He is a long way from home.

And Jacob dreams. He sees a stairway, set on the earth, its top reaching all the way to heaven. And the angels of God are going up and coming down on it. Earth and heaven, joined. Busy with God's messengers. And there, above it, stands the Lord himself. God speaks. “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring.” Then God repeats the promise first given to Abraham. “Your offspring will be as the dust of the earth. In you and in your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

And then the words Jacob needed most. “Behold, I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have spoken of to you.” Think about who God is speaking to. Not a hero. A cheat on the run. Jacob has not prayed, or promised to do better, or offered a sacrifice. God simply comes to him, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, and says: I am with you. I will not leave you.

Jacob wakes up with a start. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” He is afraid, the good kind of fear, full of wonder. “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Early in the morning, he takes the stone he slept on and sets it up as a pillar, pouring oil over it. And he names the place Bethel, which means house of God. The town used to be called Luz. From now on, Jacob will remember it as the place where heaven opened. Many centuries later, Jesus told a man named Nathanael that he would see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man. Jesus himself, he was saying, is the stairway. The place where heaven and earth meet.

The word Genesis uses for Jacob's stairway appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Many scholars think it describes something like the great stepped temple towers of Mesopotamia, called ziggurats, which had long stairways up their sides. People believed those towers were where the gods came down to meet the earth. But in Jacob's dream, no human built the stairway. God himself makes the way, and comes down to a runaway.

Heaven opened. You'll find it in Genesis chapter twenty-eight, verses ten to seventeen. Jacob went to sleep alone and woke up knowing that God had been with him all along. So here is a question to carry with you. Where in your life might God be with you, even though you did not know it?