Loading...As a young child growing up in rural Massachusetts I often spent time on farms. My father served as the priest for Christ Memorial Church North Brookfield and would take my younger brother and me with him when he brought Holy Communion to the homebound. I was 7 and Nathaniel, as Luke was called then, was 4 years old. And when Dad put the station wagon into park in Dave Hayes’ driveway. He looked at us and said, “Don’t come in the house and whatever you do don’t go near the well.”
The first place we went was to the well.
The second place we went was to the ladder.
Farms seem to always present potential peril. A well for falling in to. A ladder for falling off of. And lots of cow patties to fall over. I loved it.
And while we didn’t fall in the well, we did climb the ladder. Not all the way. Just far enough to feel that we would indeed fall off if we went to the top.
Jesus appreciates the perils of ladders. He tells Nathanael that he will get to see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man — which is a reference to the time Jesus ‘greagreatgreatgreat’ grandad Jacob was in peril. Jacob had run away from his brother Esau whom Jacob had cheated out of his identity and livelihood.
11 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. 12 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. 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 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.” Go back and reread Jacob’s story from Genesis 28.
But today we are talking about how Jesus recruits people to follow him and live his lifestyle of Love, an angel-climbing-ladders lifestyle, an ‘ups-and-downs’ lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle meant both for honest people like Nathanael and dishonest people like Jacob.
An angel-climbing-ladders lifestyle invokes awe and makes a person feel close to heaven — and possibly both imperiled and safe at the same time. That’s what it feels like at the gate of heaven.
Nathanael and the other disciples left behind one lifestyle to follow Jesus and adopt a new lifestyle.
If you are wondering what it feels like to be close to God look no further than the ups-and-downs of our humanity: The ups-and-downs of Love. Love like that of Jesus who was willing to dive the depths of death on a cross for the sake of our sins that they may be forgiven, and then ascend the heights of heaven for us to have the chance of eternal life with God in heaven.
Every rung of the angel-climbing-ladder lifestyle is a step of sacrifice for the sake of all humanity.
