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The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

October 06, 2024; Rev. Kurt A. Lantz, Pastor
Trinity 19. Jacob's Dream.jpg


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Do You See the Greater Things?

Angels again. Have you seen the angels? About two thousand years ago Jesus told Nathanael, “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (Jn 1:51). When did Nathanael see the angels? It was about two thousand years before Jesus gave that promise to Nathanael that Jacob saw the angels, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 28:10-17).

 

Jacob had deceived his father and received the blessing of the firstborn and the birthright that should have gone to his brother Esau. In fear and desperation he ran away to go to the distant land of his relatives so that his brother would not kill him. But before Jacob got very far, he spent the night laying under the stars with a stone for a pillow and God gave him a vision in a dream. Jacob saw angels. In the dream there was a ladder; there were angels; and there was God.

 

The ladder was fixed upon the earth and its top reached heaven. Jacob saw a point of connection between two places that seem to be so far apart to us. We have loved ones who are in heaven and we would do just about anything in order to have a connection with them. In some circles there is a fascination with attempts to contact the dead. We know that the conditions in heaven are free from the effects of sin. It is a better place than this world suffering with death and decay. There is perfect peace and joy there while here we suffer strife and sadness. We also associate heaven to be the place where God resides and so here we often feel disconnected from God.

 

Jacob in particular must have been feeling isolated and alone, wishing for a point of connection to anyone. He must have felt alienated from God, knowing that he had been so sinfully deceitful to his father and having stolen everything away from his brother. In fact, he was experiencing only a little portion of what he deserved. His sins had condemned him to an everlasting alienation from God and family in the eternal torments of the fiery pit of hell. That is what everyone deserves for their sinful deceit and greed and betrayals.

 

What a gracious vision God bestowed upon this man of guile when he dreamed of a ladder fixed upon the earth and its top reaching up to heaven, bridging the gap that is impassable for sinful human beings. Suddenly Jacob had access to the God who should have abandoned him. Jacob’s exile into desolation found a shortcut to utopia—a ladder affixed firmly to the earth, stable and secure; set in place by God Himself, wanting to establish the connection to His child gone astray, trapped in the destruction and isolation of his sins.

 

And there were angels, going up and going down the ladder—the ministering spirits of God in action, doing His bidding. They are couriers of the word, taking our prayers up to God’s presence in heaven and bringing His words of grace and blessing down upon us. In last week’s Bible Study we heard from Hebrews chapter 1 (:14) that the angels are “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.”

 

These heavenly beings that Jacob saw were carrying his words of fear, remorse and contrition up to the heavenly Father. How ugly and misshapen those words must have been, forced out of Jacob in the realization of the impact of his sin on his situation, on his beloved mother whom he had to leave behind, on his blind and elderly father whom he had deceived, and even on his only brother, his older twin with whom he had battled his whole life.

 

Like a heavenly hazmat team transporting toxic waste, the angels obediently take our tainted prayers to our merciful and gracious heavenly Father. To Him these prayers of conflicted confession are precious and priceless. So the angels obediently deliver them and decorate them with their perfect praises. They join to our faltering penitence their holy phrases, not in a bid of persuasion but as a fitting adornment to what our heavenly Father already holds dear.

 

What fascinates the angels is the replies that come from God’s throne of grace. God’s Word sent to us in our time of repentance and need, the preaching of the Gospel of grace in Jesus Christ is the message that the angels are pleased to deliver (1 Peter 1:12), and to provide protection for the prophets who proclaim it to God’s people. They are so full of wonder at God’s grace extended to sinful mankind that it confirms them in their obedient and humble service and fuels their never-ending praise to the God of all grace.

 

But in addition to the blessed vision of the ladder and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it, Jacob was blessed to see God Himself, not just through an opening at the top of the ladder. He didn’t just catch a glimpse of Him passing by an opening or see Him from a distance passing instructions on to His holy angels so that they would deal with Jacob’s problem. Jacob beheld God stationed on the ladder. God had placed Himself at the top of this connecting link between earth and heaven.

 

This was God’s pledge to Jacob, that He would always be accessible, that He would never cut Himself off from Jacob, in fact that He would make use of this means of grace to bring forgiveness, blessing, and salvation to Jacob, not only in his time of distress but at all times. And God spoke to Jacob to say that He would always be there to bless Jacob, even when the dream had come to an end and the ladder had faded from sight, and the angels were no longer visible.

 

God’s promise to Jacob concerns you, too. It was not restricted Jacob or only to his present distress. It was not simply to get him out of this particular predicament. It was a promise that involved his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham. But not a promise that was limited to the family, nor even to the tribes that would come from his twelve children.

 

God’s pledge to Jacob went back through the generations to the promise He had made in the presence of Adam and Eve, and the promise stretched far ahead even to encompass us here today. “In you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28:14). It was the promise to crush the head of the serpent that deceived our first parents in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15), plunging the world into death and decay. It was the promise that through Jacob’s children and descendants this One offspring to crush sin, death, and the devil would be born. It was the promise that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, forgiveness and eternal life would be available to all.

 

The promise given to Jacob is a promise given to you. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is your God. The salvation and blessing that He gives is given to you. So where is the ladder and the angels? Have you seen the angels? Did Nathanael ever see them?

 

There was a man who told me that he had seen an angel. He was a lifelong Lutheran and long-time family friend. I was a seminary student at the time and on a visit home, I think it was for Christmas. It was known to my family that this friend had a terminal illness, so I went with my father to visit him. He was very glad to see us, very honest about his condition quickly heading toward death, and with the temptations and struggles he had been experiencing with guilt and pain. He told us that at one point when he didn’t think he could endure any more, an angel appeared to him at the foot of his bed.

 

He doesn’t recall the angel saying anything, but that with the sight of it his pain immediately went away. Shortly thereafter his pastor came to bring to him the word of God and the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood. And consequently also my father and I, as well as other brothers and sisters in Christ, visited to bring Christian comfort and encouragement to him. Did our family friend see what Jacob saw and what was promised to Nathanael? What about me? What about you?

 

Jesus promised that Nathanael would see greater things than the omniscience of Jesus demonstrated in His knowing who Nathanael was before meeting him that day. The greater things that Nathanael saw were indeed accompanied by the action of angels ascending and descending, not upon a ladder but upon Jesus Christ, the Son of God become man, the one place where heaven and earth are connected. In the words and actions of Jesus, Nathanael saw that heaven was opened and that the angels were active, joining in the prayers of the faithful and ushering God’s gracious answer given in the coming of Jesus.

 

Whether or not Nathanael was there when Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic man, this is a case in point of the intersection of heaven and earth in Jesus Christ where angels ascend and descend as God’s grace is given to mankind. This is indeed what Christ Himself was trying to communicate to those whose whispered grumbles He knew all too well. “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matthew 9:6).

 

It is in the person of Jesus that divine forgiveness comes down from God’s throne of grace in answer to the prayers of His people. “When the crowds saw it they glorified God who had given such authority to men” (v. 9). They saw it—the greater things that Nathanael saw, the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

 

Do you see it? Do you see the greater things that are done in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins? Do you see the angels of God ascending and descending, as the called servants of Christ bring you His Word and His gifts in answer to your collected prayers for forgiveness, peace, healing, and eternal life?

 

As your sins are forgiven in the stead and by the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, know that angels carried your confession before God’s throne as in bowls of sweet smelling incense. Angels accompanied His Word of absolution swiftly surrounding it to be securely spoken by the called and ordained minister of Christ. With angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify God’s glorious name, as Jesus comes to us here at the altar and at the bedside of the sick. Whether you see them or not, the angels are there and active, because that is where Christ bridges heaven and earth for you.

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