"All He Has to Say"
#92-04Presented on The Lutheran Hour on September 22, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
Reflections
Text: Genesis 28:15
If you live with someone long enough, you can recognize them even by the way they sound on the stairs. In my experience anyway. That's how I knew it was my dad that night. I recognized his sound on the stairway. His pacing was distinct. Heavy, but measured, the cadence of someone who'd served in the military. I knew it was him, and I thought I knew what he was coming to say. Something more about how disappointed he was in me because I had lied to him. I had looked him straight in the face and lied. I'd come home late that night, past my curfew. He waited up for me, and I lied about where I was and what I was doing because I knew that if he knew, I'd be in trouble. But he already knew. Now that I'm a parent, I realize that parents aren't as dumb as we look. Parents talk. And that night my friend's parents had called my parents and told them the whole story. So they knew. My dad knew the truth but still he asked me, to test me. So right out of the gate, he knew that I was lying.
Which is worse, to find out later that someone you loved has lied to you, or to know in the moment while it's happening? Do you confront them right away or do you wait? After my dad had all the deception he could stomach, he told me that he knew. He revealed the insider information that disarmed me. And so, after that, the conversation ended abruptly. Once he played that card, the game was over. What more could I say? I don't remember much of what happened next. In the time it took me to descend the steps into the basement, brush my teeth, and get ready for bed, I'm sure I was angry at him testing me, angry at myself because I thought I could lie my way out of it, embarrassed about being caught, ashamed and then angry again.
But when I heard him coming down the stairs after I'd shut off the lights and crawled into the bed, it was mostly just shame. Shame that I was such a disappointment. And that's how my dad's steps sounded that night, a descending crescendo to confirm my shame. The door to my room was to the right of the basement landing. He knocked and opened it before I answered. "Michael, you still awake?" he asked. "Yeah," I said. He was quiet for a moment, weighing his words. "I love you, son," he said. That was all he had to say. I don't remember what I said in response. I don't know if I said anything at all.
There was a moment something like this in the life of Jacob, the patriarch of the Jewish people, the grandson of Abraham, Isaac's son, along with his twin brother, Esau. It's recorded in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, chapter 28.
Jacob had just lied to his father, Isaac. Isaac is an old man now. He's gone blind and Jacob leveraged his old man's disability against him. He dressed up in Esau's clothes, pretending to be his brother, Esau, because Esau was Isaac's favorite and Jacob knew it. Jacob knew Isaac was intending to give Esau the blessing. The blessing Abraham their grandfather had passed down to them. Jacob knew this blessing was a big deal. He knew that it had come from God and that getting it was a great honor and a great privilege. Jacob didn't understand the full weight of the blessing, but he knew he wanted it. And he lied and schemed and cheated for it, even invoked God's Name falsely to get it. And he got what he wanted. At least he thought so. But what was the result? Esau, his brother hated him and wanted to kill him. His mother and father sent him away to live with his uncle in a neighboring country. And now Jacob has to walk 500 miles to get there. Jacob, the guy who prefers to stay indoors. So, he sets out running from his murderous brother, running from his disappointed father, running from God. Unprepared for the journey ahead with only a few provisions from the sound of it: no sleeping bag, no pillow, just the clothes on his back, some bread, some oil. But before he gets too far, God comes down to meet Jacob—that lying, cheating, no good disappointment, because God has something to say to him.
Genesis 28 says,
Jacob, after he set out, he came to a certain place, and he stopped there for the night because the sun had set. And he took some of the stones in that place and put them under his head and lay down to sleep. And he had a dream. Look, a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. And look, angels, messengers of God going up and down on it. And look, the Lord was standing beside him and He said, "I am who I am, the God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. This land where you are sleeping, I will give to you and to your offspring. And look, your offspring will become as the dust of the earth and will spread out to the west and the east, the north and the south, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring. And look, I Myself will be with you and will guard you in all the places where you go. And I will bring you back to this land because I will not leave you until I have done what I've promised you."
And Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Truly, the Lord is in this place and I didn't know it." And Jacob was afraid. And he said, "How awesome is this place? This is none other than the House of God, the gate of heaven." And Jacob rose up early that morning, and he took the stone he had placed under his head and he set it up as a pillar, as a monument. And he poured out some of his oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place, "Beth-El," which means "house of God." And Jacob made a vow saying, "If the Lord God is with me and will guard me on this journey that I am taking and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and He will bring me back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord will be my God. And this stone that I have set up as a monument will be God's house. And all that You give me, Lord, I will give a tenth, a tithe, back to You."
That's from Genesis 28.
How does it speak to you? How does it strike you? Maybe it strikes you as outdated because we have, after all, sent spaceships up to the heavens and haven't seen God up there. It's true. The ancient world from which this account comes viewed the world's horizon, the dome of the sky differently than the way we see it. Some might say more simplistically, but that's not necessarily a reason to dismiss it. The story from Genesis, after all, has passed down to us through the ages. It's outlasted empires, proved more durable than stone, so maybe we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. And the worldview of the person who wrote it down may not be as simplistic as it seems.
The narrator does recognize that Jacob is having a dream, and dreams are better taken figuratively rather than literally, right? So, what might the dream mean figuratively? Now, if you don't believe in Jacob's God, that is, in a personal all-powerful Creator God who wants to communicate with us literally, then you might say the dream represents human desire for transcendence—the desire to escape the bonds of our bodies, to transcend our material existence. You might say it shows the hope that this life isn't all there is, that there's some higher state of consciousness, higher plane of existence that we can climb to. "Climbing Jacob's ladder" as the old song goes. But in the dream, God didn't say anything to Jacob about climbing the ladder, if it was a ladder. It may have been a stairway as some translations have it. The Hebrew word used in the Genesis text can mean either.
So, what's the difference? I suppose a stairway is more domestic, more homey than a ladder. A ladder's good for a job site, but it wouldn't be the choice for daily life, say, to connect two floors on a home. So maybe a stairway does fit better here because Jacob puts the whole dream in a domestic setting, right? When he wakes up, he calls the place Beth-El, the house of God, picturing the universe figuratively like a big house that comprises at least two levels, earth and heaven. Heaven, speaking figuratively, not somewhere you can get to in a rocket ship, but a different dimension, God's dimension, beyond the space-time continuum, but somehow still connected to it through this inclined corridor. And since it's a house that he pictures, a home, I suppose the dream isn't really about our hope for transcendence, but rather our need for relationship. And it's not a prompt to climb higher. It's a promise that God comes down to your level. And maybe you say with Jacob, the Lord is in this place, and I didn't know it. Maybe that's how Genesis 28 speaks to you. Maybe you can put yourself in Jacob's place.
I was talking about this story with a young woman recently. I'll call her Tara. Tara is in graduate school. She's under a lot of pressure, stressing about interviews and internships and job prospects. And sometimes she feels like she's not enough. She's worried that she'll be a disappointment, that she is a disappointment. And when Tara heard Jacob's story, what struck her wasn't the stairway or the ladder. It was what God had to say to Jacob. God descended the stairs, not to let Jacob have it, not to tell him how much of a disappointment he was, although he was. No, God came down to tell him that He loved him because God has a promise for him: to bless him and be with him and to care for him. And Tara and I talked about how this promise has passed down to us through Jacob, how it's come down to us through Jacob's greatest Offspring, Jesus, who, it turns out, is also God's Word, God's communication, what God wants to say to us in the flesh. In Jesus, God came downstairs to be born in Jacob's family because He has something to say to us, something to say to you. Jesus said that He is the fulfillment of Jacob's dream.
In the Gospel of John 1:51, Jesus says that He is the stairway, and He is the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to God except through Him. And Jesus said that He would draw all people to Himself by dying on the cross. And He rose from the dead, literally, so that God's promise to Jacob could be also for you. Listen to it again. God says to you, look, I Myself am with you, I will guard you in all the places that you go, and I will bring you back. I will not leave you. I will do what I have promised you.
The book of Genesis has something to say to us. It says, here is what life can look like, what it was designed to look like: life with God and His creation, full life, heaven and earth joined together, God with us, walking with us, talking with us, calling us to represent Him, to be His image in the world, created in His likeness to be creative beings who bring order out of chaos and live by relationships. But Genesis also says how we got mixed up in another view of life, a false life cut off from God, trying to be our own little gods for ourselves. But we haven't got the results we were hoping for, have we? And sometimes we lie to ourselves to cope. We keep telling ourselves that we can climb higher, and God confronts us in our lies. He disarms us, tests us, tries us, stretches us, teaches us because He loves us.
Recently, I asked my mom and dad about what they remembered from that night 30 years ago when I lied about where I was and what I was doing. I didn't know that after I had slunked downstairs in shame, they had talked, they had a conversation. "What are we going to do with him?" they said. Now, as a parent of four children, it makes sense to me that they would've talked. My dad processing through some things that he said that he wished he hadn't. My mom encouraging him to show me that they wouldn't hold this over me and that they still loved me. That was the loving conversation that sent my dad downstairs that night. And I heard him, and I knew it was him because I knew how he sounded on the stairs. But I didn't know his heart. I didn't know what he had to say, not yet.
Even if you don't believe in God or you're not sure what you believe about God, this universe, this house that we live in sometimes feels haunted. We haven't seen God from any of our spaceships. But maybe you have had quiet moments when you've sensed some presence on the steps creaking around the house at night. And if the Creator is up there and He cares about how we care for the place and how we care for each other, then we must come off as a disappointment. And even without God, there's no shortage of people telling you how much of a disappointment you are. When you live in this world long enough, there are some things that you cannot not know. But even with all that knowledge, do you know God's heart?
How could you unless you hear what He has to say? In creation you can hear His echo. In your conscience you can feel His disappointment. At night you can hear Him creaking on the stairway. But in Jesus, you can hear what He has to say. You can know His promise, His intentions, His heart. Because He has come down. He is here, and He's coming down again, not to shame you but to bless you, to protect you because He loves you. So, what do you want to say to Him in response?
If you're willing, I invite you to talk to Him with me now.
Dear God, if You are with me and You'll protect me, give me food to eat and clothes to wear, and bring me to Your house in peace, then You will be my God. And all my work in this world will be as a monument to Your kindness. And of all that You give me, I will give a tenth, a tithe, back to You. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
Reflections for September 22, 2024
Title: Patience and Perfection
Mark Eischer: At lutheranhour.org, you'll find free online resources, previous broadcasts, and more. That's lutheranhour.org. Now back to our Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Michael Zeigler: Thank you, Mark. Today I am visiting with Dr. Daniel Paavola, who is an author, a pastor, a professor, and one of our regular guest speakers who's going to be bringing us the message from God's Word next week on the program. Dan, welcome back!
Dan Paavola: Well, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to be with you and with all our listeners. Thank you to all of them.
Michael Zeigler: Dan, as you know, we have started a series on the life of Jacob, recorded in the book of Genesis. And I wanted to chat a little with you about why it's good for Christians to read the Old Testament. Let's focus on an image that you mention in your book titled Patience & Perfection. There in the book you say that the Bible is a "contextual river." So what does that mean, a contextual river? I like the sound of it.
Dan Paavola: It does have a ring to it, doesn't it? Well, imagine you're going down a twisty, turny Northwoods Wisconsin river on a canoe. All right? Simple enough. You can't see very far down the river, and it bends into the forest, and you're naturally going to wonder what's it like around the bend. If you've seen too many cartoons, you're going to imagine it's a plunge straight down. Well, of course, it's not. Rivers don't suddenly go from 2 miles an hour to 40 miles an hour, or something like that. And so you can assure whoever's in the canoe with you, the river around the bend, it's just like the river here.
If we're in the far Northwoods of Wisconsin, the bald eagle, it's fairly common to see—but not at the boat landing. They don't just stand there waiting for you. You might see the deer, the fawn, and maybe even the black bear. Well, you have to go around the bend and somewhat it'll be a surprise. And I think reading the Bible is similar to that. We start at, you might say, the headwaters of Genesis, and are we going to find that it's the same story every bend that we take? Well, yes, in that we have God who does not change, who as Creator is also Redeemer and Sanctifier.
And an illustration from Jesus' ministry is when Jesus is given someone to heal, He always heals them. He never leaves somebody behind and says, "Well, that one's just too tough. I can't do that." No, He always heals. But don't get bored. Because who does He heal, and how does He heal them? And what's the reaction to that healing? That changes with every bend in the river. And so I think there's a continuity that assures us it's the same God.
Michael Zeigler: To answer that question, "why should we read the Old Testament" is because we want to become better acquainted with God and His ways, and we know that He's the same God. And the more we can see of His track record, the more we'll become familiar with Him. And ultimately, we come to know Him fully in Jesus. But we're not going to understand Him unless we've seen how He's worked upriver, so to speak, in the Old Testament.
Dan Paavola: Absolutely. And when you're reading the Old Testament and you see a significant event, you're going to say, "I'm going to see this again." Now, exactly when and how, who knows? God isn't limited by time, space, or numbers. So take a lesson and then apply it downstream to maybe a bigger setting, but it's still the same God with limitless power.
Michael Zeigler: And that's what I see you doing in this book that I referenced, Patience & Perfection. You're looking at these patterns or lessons, and you're helping us see how they lead to Jesus and how they also reveal God's character, which is consistent and reliable. And so when we're reading Jacob's story in Genesis, one of those themes that you mentioned in the book, a pattern that might be helpful is the first one you talk about, is instant perfection and patient relationship. So how does that biblical pattern help us understand what God's up to in Jacob's life?
Dan Paavola: Well, we would all love instant perfection relationship with God. I mean, wouldn't Genesis 1 be great? God says, "Let there be light." Boom! There's light, and it's very good. So we've got God who could instantly answer prayers, fill our needs, heal the sick, and He certainly does, many, many times. Jesus touches a leper. Boom! "Be clean." He is. Is that always, however, how God acts with us and biblically? Far more often, it's a patient relationship. My father and I restored two antique cars. It took us eight years to restore a model T and a model A.
And when we got done, were they perfect? Well, no, dad and I are not professional body men. My dad was a farmer. But why did we do it? Well, not to have perfection but a patient relationship. We spent eight years building those cars together, just best eight years of our relationship. And isn't that what we say with God? "God, I would love for an instant perfect answer to my problems." On the other hand, I think God puts an arm around our shoulders and says, "Well, you know what, let's work on patience and our relationship." And that's really going to be far more lasting and more important than just the instant perfect. Because as soon as we got an instant perfect answer, we'll ask for another one. We'll find another problem. We want that done right away. Maybe a patient relationship in itself is a bit more lasting.
Michael Zeigler: Well, and you see both of those in Jacob's life when he's fleeing from his home because Esau wants to kill him. God appears in that amazing vision of the stairway coming down, and it's all just pure grace and promise there. There's not a harsh word that God has for Jacob. And yet for the next 20 years, it's going to be this wrestling match that culminates in a wrestling match with God after 20 years. And so you see that maybe long-suffering relationship, but that is also patience.
Dan Paavola: Yep. And amazing, that deception that Jacob had acted on, carried out against his father, stealing the blessing from his brother, that does come back to our friend Jacob, the deception and the darkness of a tent, and we all know that story, but still the bottom answer line with God is forgiveness. I'm still with you. I'm going to walk with you. I'll take you to that frightening meeting with your brother Esau. Hold your breath on that one. But God is with him the entire time.
Michael Zeigler: Well, we look forward to hearing God's Word for us through you next week as you talk about that deception and the darkness of the tent, and Jacob's 20 years of hardship that he's going to face at his uncle's house.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
