Trinity 19
Gen
28:10-17
10/22/17
In our text this morning we see that
Jacob was in quite a mess. And the sad
truth was he had brought it upon himself. Of course he didn’t get all the
credit for it. Mom had a hand in it too.
Jacob was the son of Isaac, and the
grandson of Abraham. Isaac’s wife
Rebekah had given birth to twins: to Jacob and his brother Esau. Esau had been born first. Twins, of course,
share the same day of birth. They are the same age. But that doesn’t change the fact that one is
born first and the other is born second.
Matthew likes to remind his sister that he is older than she is … by
about ten seconds.
Esau was born first. And in the ancient world this meant more than
just bragging rights about which twin was older. It had very important implications for the
future. The first born son received preferential treatment in the
inheritance. They may have shared the
womb for nine months, but because he came out first, Esau was going to inherit
the most as his birthright.
Esau was a manly man. He was a
skillful hunter – an outdoors kind of guy.
Jacob was a homebody who liked to stay inside the tent, and even did
some cooking. One day, Esau had been out
hunting and returned exhausted and famished.
Jacob was cooking stew, and Esau demanded some. Jacob said he could have some … in exchange
for Esau’s birthright. Clearly Jacob was
breaking the Ninth Commandment – he coveted his brother’s inheritance and was
scheming to get it. Esau was impulsive. He thoughtlessly despised his birthright and
sold it to Jacob for some stew.
Isaac loved his manly son Esau. Rebekah loved her mama’s boy Jacob. When Isaac was very old, he asked Esau to go
out hunting and to prepare a meal for him, so that as father he could impart
his blessing on Esau his first born son.
However, Rebekah overhead this and looking out for her favorite she
prepared a meal. She had Jacob dress in Esau’s clothes and cover himself with
the skins of goats so that he would pass for his hairy brother before Isaac who
could not see. And Jacob pulled it off. He fooled Isaac into speaking the
blessing over him instead of his brother.
When Esau learned what had happened
he was incensed. He plotted to kill
Jacob after his father had died. He
spoke to others about his intention and the word got back to Rebekah. So she told Jacob that he had to leave. She sent him to live with her brother Laban
in Haran, northeast of Palestine. Rebekah instructed Jacob that he was not to
take a wife from the local Canaanites, but instead to marry one of Laban’s
daughters.
In our text we see Jacob on the
run. He has nothing. His brother wants to kill him. Just like so many of the problems in your
life, it is sin that has caused it. He
coveted. He lied. Rebekah showed
partiality. She schemed to deceive her
husband and take from her older son. And
of course all of this sinning occurred in the setting of family. If this sounds very familiar, that’s because
you are no different. Your sins in the
setting of your family cause problems and heartache. They mess things up.
Jacob stopped for the night and had
to sleep out in the open – with nothing more than a stone for a pillow. That
night he had a dream in which he saw a ladder
set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. The angels of God
were ascending and descending on it, and above the latter stood Yahweh.
Then, God
spoke to Jacob and made four promises.
First he said, “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.” Next he said, “Your
offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to
the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your
offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Finally he added, “Behold,
I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to
this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised
you.”
Now for the
reader of Genesis the first three promises are no surprise. They are the same
thing that God had promised to Abraham and Isaac. Yahweh promised to give them the land. He promised to give them many
descendants. And he promised that in
their offspring all nations would be blessed.
At that
moment, these promises must have been hard for Jacob to fathom. After all he had nothing. He was running away from his own family so
that his brother didn’t kill him. Land?
Descendants like the dust of the earth? All families being blessed in him and
his offspring? At that moment, Jacob’s
goals probably weren’t much bigger than getting through the next day.
And so
Yahweh added a fourth promise: “Behold, I
am with you and will keep you
wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Jacob needed encouragement. And so God declared that he was with
Jacob. The dream – the vision – of the
ladder, and angels and Yahweh drove home that point. God was with Jacob. He was going to keep
Jacob and God would not leave Jacob
until he delivered on his promise.
When he
awoke, Jacob knew for sure that God was with him.
He said, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and
I did not know it.” Then he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place!
This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Jacob was
in the midst of the mess that sin had caused. But God knew where he was. He knew what was going on. And he spoke his promises to Jacob. He spoke
promises that were fulfilled in Israel as God created a nation form the line of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and gave them the land of Palestine. He spoke the promise about the One who would
descend from the patriarchs and be a blessing to all families. And he spoke the promise that he would be
with Jacob and keep him in God’s care.
Yahweh made his presence known to Jacob in a way that left no doubt.
Yahweh kept
his promises. In fact he did it in a
manner that has gone beyond anything Jacob could have imagined. Not only did he create Israel and give them
Palestine. But in Jesus Christ, the
offspring of Jacob, the patriarch’s descendants have indeed spread out to the
west and the east and the north and the south.
You are
among those descendants. Paul told the
Galatians that because they were baptized, they were in Christ. They had been united with Christ who is THE
descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and so now they too were descendants of
Abraham. He wrote, “There is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for
you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are
Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”
It is in
Jesus Christ that blessing has come to your family through the line of
Jacob. His experience at the place he
would name Bethel left quite an impression. And it did so for a reason. When Jacob woke up, he was afraid. and said,
“How awesome is this place!” We could
also translate this as, “How fearful is this place!” Jacob had come into the presence of the holy
God, and his reaction was the same as everyone else in Scripture who had this
experience: he was afraid. That’s the
way it always is when sinners find themselves before the holy God.
But Yahweh
had not come to cause fear. Instead, he
had come to comfort and encourage. You
find comfort in Jesus Christ the descendant of Jacob because through his death
and resurrection God has provided atonement for your sins. Your sin is no longer a barrier that keeps
you from God. It no longer causes fear
in God’s presence. As Paul told the
Galatians, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” You have been covered with Christ’s
righteousness and so when God looks at you he does not see your sin. He sees the holy righteousness of his Son.
And in
Jesus Christ, you find encouragement.
Jacob needed encouragement. He
had a long way to go – and I am not just talking about his journey to Haran and
his uncle Laban. He had a long way to go
in life with many twists and turns. He
would experience the deception of his uncle as he sought a bride. He would return to Palestine and face the fear
of the impending reunion with Esau. He
would experience the devastating loss of his son Joseph whom he believed was
killed by a wild animal. He would
experience the elation of learning that Joseph was in fact alive, and was even
second in charge of Egypt.
The
experience that we hear about in our text was meant to tell Jacob that Yahweh
was with him. God has acted in Jesus
Christ to tell you the same thing. In
fact Jesus Christ is God with us – Emmanuel.
God has acted in the flesh of Jesus Christ to reveal his love for you –
in flesh nailed to a cross. But then on
the third day he raised that flesh, and transformed so that it can never die
again. The living hope of the
resurrection of Jesus gives us the encouragement that we need.
This is not
encouragement to do the spectacular. It
is encouragement to walk step by step through the course of life. It is encouragement to live in your vocations,
doing the things that God has given you to do – the things God uses you to do
for others. It is encouragement to trust
that God is with you when there is depression or cancer … or a brain tumor.
This is
encouragement that we need. And that is
why you come here each week. Good
Shepherd is not the biggest church you are ever going to see. If you are looking for that you need to go to
St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Good
Shepherd is not the most ornate church you are ever going to see. If you are looking for that, there are a lot
of options, but I recommend St. Mark’s in Venice, Italy.
But because
Christ’s Means of Grace are present here, Jacob’s words are true of Good
Shepherd: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven.” Jesus
is here to encourage you – to build you up through his Spirit. As the crucified and risen Lord, he is here to
speak to you through his Word and to give you his true body and blood, given
and shed for you. He is hear through
Word and Sacrament to say, “Behold, I am with
you and will keep you wherever you go.”
No comments:
Post a Comment