With Us

Genesis 28:10-22

In a zone between departure and destination, in the vulnerability of sleep and the receptiveness of dream, Jacob sees a stairway – probably more like a ziggurat (What kind of ‘stairway’ would they have in those days, anyway?). Angels, messengers of God, are going up and down this ramp. If they’re using a ramp they probably don’t have wings, right? So there’s this six-lane, broadband thing going on between heaven and earth. It all sets the scene for the Lord himself to speak. The speech suggests we should think of this more as a down-ramp than an up-ramp. The Lord doesn’t say, “Come on up,” but “I am with you” (verse 15). And he will bless Jacob and his progeny from heaven.

It’s probably fair to observe that heaven is more concerned with earth than earth is with heaven. That is underlined with the last bit, where the place that had been a kind of twilight zone now becomes a place of great significance and remembrance because the Lord was experienced there. God doesn’t just make his presence known as the one we hope one day to come to, but as the one who comes to us, who enters this world and all our experience, coming to scoundrels like Jacob and you and me, and promising to be with us. That was the message to Israel and to us. The eras are transcended with that message and reality in one of the most beautiful of Advent carols, celebrating Emmanuel, “God with us":

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Words: Combined from various texts by an unknown author, possibly in the 12th Century (Veni, veni Emanuel); translated from Latin to English by John M. Neale in 1851.
Music: Veni Emmanuel, from a 15th Century processional of French Franciscan nuns

Prayer:
Are you with us, Lord? Yes more than we know. Thank you. In Jesus, our Emmanuel. Amen.