Genesis 28: found by God

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’

Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.’

Genesis 28:10-22

Imagine you are Jacob at Genesis 28:10.  There's not really much to commend you.  Yes, you have tricked your brother out of his blessing, having previously taken advantage of him to also take his status as firstborn.  However, these things are of little good to you now as the wages of sin - the consequences of the methods you used - are upon you.  The threat of death is real as you are fleeing from your brother.  You are morally and socially cast out from your home and family.  On the surface you're on a mission to find a wife, but really this was just a ploy of your mother to get you out of danger with your father's blessing (27:42-28:5).  From the benefit of our vantage point, we readers may be able to see how God is working out his plans through these events (as indeed, we saw in the previous chapter).  However, the fact still remains that it was Jacob's sin that got him into this situation, and that, despite Isaac's declaration of God's promises over him in 28:3-4, the lack of his own living faith meant that would have felt pretty lonely.

And yet, here we have the Lord God, coming to meet this wretched man.   In Jacob's dream he sees a stairway to Heaven, with God's messengers  the angels ascending and descending.  The dream is typically interpreted to represent continuous and uninterrupted fellowship with God, with the ascending and descending angels carrying his words to us and our prayers to him.   This is what is on offer to every believer, even when the clarity of God's presence is obscured by the waywardness of our hearts.

And yet, one might wonder why God did not come to declare Jacob's sinfulness and his need to repent.  We must not, of course, take this passage in isolation and suggest that there is never a need to call people to repentance and that this is not what God asks of us (consider, for example, the messages of John the Baptist and Jesus: 'Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand', Matthew 3:2/Matthew 4:17/ Mark 1:15)   However, what it does show us is that at the heart of God is a glory and power and love that itself changes hearts.  Repentance is a turning away from other things and towards God, and this is what Jacob did in response to seeing the glory of God.

God re-states the promises he made to Abraham and Isaac.  His promise, again, foreshadows the coming of Jesus, the 'offspring' through whom all peoples on earth will be blessed.  This promise is not conditional, and not earned either.  God's promise is a free gift to all - there is nothing we can do to earn it.  Here is a fugitive with nothing to give, and God meets him and declares his promises.  And God is ready to meet us too - wherever we are.  He may choose dramatic means like he did this time, but more often than not the revelation of God is more humble - through seeing our Lord through his body the Church, through reading the scriptures.  A conversation, a verse, maybe an observation of his creation, has led so many to glimpse his glory in the way Jacob did.  Each time, however, it is not because we have done anything to commend ourselves, but because he, in his great love for his lost people, speaks out to us.

And what of Jacob's response?  The God who was previously the God of  Abraham and Isaac becomes the God of Jacob - the one to whom he turns and trusts.  It is up for debate whether the 'if' in Jacob's vow (28:20) means that he is making a conditional vow to God - testament of his immature faith, still thinking that he has to bargain with God to access his promises - or simply typical of contemporary covenant language.  However, we do see that Jacob's faith is still young regardless - he is unable to grasp the full promises of God, simply focussing on asking God to protect him on his journey and bring him home to his father's house.  Like us, Jacob still has much to learn, but God is with him and we see his grace unfold more and more as we read Jacob's story.

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Next: Genesis 29-30: Jacob, Laban, Rachel and Leah...and the tangled web of deceit and bitterness