Advent 2

Church is a special place. It’s where we can go to escape from the world – from the busyness of our daily schedules. And in the pews, we sit and hear the Word of God. After the service, we hangout and enjoy each other’s company and fellowship. But after that, we leave and immediately go back into our daily lives – the workaday, worry-a-day world. What happens at church is an event that becomes isolated within the church walls. And outside these walls, there may be times where we pray to Jesus to take our hand – or pray for Jesus to take the wheel (as Carrie Underwood famously sings) – to help lead us through hardships and tough times we may face. Because to us, church is where God is – where Christ is. And when we come to him at church, we leave behind the busyness of our schedules and bring to him our worries of the world. But when we leave, do we take church with us? There is no doubt that, church sometimes gives us a glimpse of heaven. But after, we always have to go back out into this crazy, scary world. But in that world, does Jesus make advents to you during the busyness, and worries of your normal week?

In the OT lesson for today, we heard about the famous story of “Jacob’s Ladder.” The name Jacob means “supplanter,” someone who takes something that is not rightfully his. Jacob certainly was a supplanter. His older brother Esau was entitled to the birthright, the blessing of their father Isaac, but Jacob deceived Isaac and stole the birthright. You can imagine how angry Esau was. So parents Isaac and Rebekah decided Jacob needed to leave home and sent him to live and work for uncle Laban, Rebekah’s brother. This is as tough as leaving home to join the military. Certainly harder than going off to college. Your first major time away from home, your brother angry with you for good reason ... heh, he may come and try to kill you. You’re worrying. What’s going to happen? You’re walking miles. You’re all alone. Night comes. You find a place that looks safe. How safe? You’re not in a hotel where you can double lock the door. You’re outside, animals around. You use a rock for a pillow. Does it get any more real world than this? Jacob may not have been expecting an advent in his problems, but he got one. Let’s pick up the story with the words from Genesis 28.

And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and 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. 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. 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.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And 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.”

Whenever I hear of this story, something simple that I wonder about is the direction of the ladder. When we, for example, use a ladder to put up Christmas lights, the ladder goes from the ground up. That’s the whole point of it – to help you ascend to higher places so that you can achieve a goal. But is that what’s going on with Jacob’s ladder? Is it going up to heaven, so we can go to God, or does the ladder come from heaven down to earth, so God comes to us?

In the Gospel text for today, Jesus answers this question. In his conversation with Nathanael, Jesus refers to this vision from Jacob, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” So, Jacob’s ladder? It’s Jesus. In Jacob’s vision, He saw the Lord – in other words, the pre-incarnate Christ standing atop the ladder. And that Lord descended the ladder and came to earth. That was the first true Advent where God himself came down from heaven in the form of a human being.

But what’s even more interesting, is when Jesus says, “you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man,” there’s one important detail missing – the ladder. In Jacob’s vision there’s an implied distance between heaven and earth that the ladder mediates. But here, in this passage from John, there is no need for the ladder to mediate that distance from heaven and earth because it no longer exists. Heaven itself became incarnate in the flesh. Christ is Heaven on earth.

And yes, Christ did ascend back into Heaven, but that doesn’t mean heaven and earth have distanced themselves again. Heaven is still on earth. It’s here, at church through the proclaimed Word the Sacraments, and the gathering of the Body of Christ. Heaven is here in your devotions and the reading of Scripture. Heaven is here when you have conversations with others about Jesus and your faith. Heaven is here in the most magnificent of ways, and even the most mundane. Because that’s what Christ has promised – to be with us to the very end of the age. Martin Luther wrote that, “If anyone speaks with himself and meditates on the word, God is present there with the angels; and he works and speaks in such a way that the entrance into the kingdom of heaven is open.” Therefore, in many and various ways, Jesus makes advents to you during the week.

So as you go through the week, remember this story of Jacob’s ladder. That while Jacob was alone in nature with no place to stay, and a rock as his pillow, God made an advent to Him. And in the same way, in the busyness, the scariness, the anxieties, the depression of our world, Christ continues to make Advents to us when we come to him and ask, “Jesus, please be with me and take my hand.” So take Advent out of the church, and into the week, because Jesus promises to make advents to you every day, and in every place until the day He makes his final Advent.

In Jesus name, Amen.