Scripture Genesis 28:11-22
Worship and the Extension Ladder
I love ladders: Step stools, step ladders, Rope ladders, rolling ladders, Platform ladders, Attic ladders, Extension ladders. I have been a painter and painted 2-3 story houses on a ladder using rollers brushes and sprayers. I have used ladders to get on the roof of trailers to remove snow. I have used ladders to hang Christmas lights and change light bulbs. I have used ladders to adjust theater lighting and I had a job where the industrial shelving we were building became the ladder to add the next level. I love ladders. Have I ever been in danger on a ladder - oh my yes. However, there is something special about a tool that allows you to get up to the thing you need to work on, but also allows you to get down from there.
What is worship?
Is it something we do? Is it something God does? Let’s look at it using a theater metaphor.
1) God is the director - Leaders are the actors - Congregation is the audience.
2) Leaders are the directors - Congregation are the actors - God is the audience.
3) Leaders are the directors - God is the actor - Congregation is the audience.
4) Or is there some combination using all of the above?
LADDER AS WORSHIP: An important question LADDER 1
Is worship us trying to get up to God OR is worship God trying to get down to us?
OR is it both? Notice that an extension ladder has two parts that overlap in the middle. I believe our greatest worship takes place where the two parts of the ladder LADDER 2 intersect. Worship IS God coming down to us and worship IS us going up to God.
PRELUDE TO THE TEXT
Issac instructs Jacob not to marry a Canaanite wife. His brother Easu does so out of spite for losing his birthright to Jacob. Besides instructions, Isaac gave Abraham’s blessing to Jacob (that God would create a people through him - and that the Messiah would come through him). Jacob is promised a land, a nation and a blessing similar to his grandfather Abraham.
Genesis 28:11-22
When Jacob reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. (We no longer have to stop because we have lights and cars - it was a danger to travel at night) 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. (In Jacob's dream, there is now access to heaven. Jacob now knew God was closer than ever and there was real access and interaction between heaven and earth. That interaction is where Worship takes place. Jesus is not sitting passively saying, ok bring it on - Jesus is active in our worship - God is acting and speaking and working in our worship. As we give thanks, praise, and honor to him He is blessing us. Watch what happens next as Jacob is meditating on the connection between heaven and earth - see God’s action in worship) 13 There above it (the ladder) 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." (You aren’t a saint like Jacob, so God would never give such a great blessing to you. Wait a minute, do we mean Jacob who was in cahoots with his mother to steal his brother’s birthright by pulling a fast one on his father? That Jacob? In worship - God speaks - God blesses - God loves)
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." (Jacob’s response was worship - to give honor to the one who has blessed him)
18 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. (That was a spiritual ACT of worship) 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. BETHEL (He called that place “Church” Bethel means = house of God)
20 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 house, 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."
God saw Jacob and initiated a relationship by sending angels going up and down from heaven to get him looking upward. And indeed, Jacob saw God standing in heaven at the top of the stairway or the ladder to heaven.
Notice Jacob’s response, he acts in worship. He turns what was previously used for an ordinary everyday object (a rock for a pillow) and set it up as a symbol of his worship and adoration for all God has done. It sounds like a deal - if you do this I will do that that. This is not the case. He is simply recounting how God had just acted toward him and he offers all he has present (a rock) as an act of worship, calls the place church (Bethel = house of God) and gives him an offering - his tithe - a tenth of all he has.
In a brief story we see the picture of worship - God acts toward us, we respond and act toward God and those two acts intersect much like an extension ladder which shows God coming down toward us and us moving up toward God and the angels of heaven are present helping to make this interaction happen. This individual act of worship is a preview of what corporate worship should look like.
The ladder is a symbol in religions of Mesopotamia and Babylon and now for the Jews. It signifies a means from the realm of a deity to the realm of humans. Notice that God is standing at an opening in heaven but Jacob names the place Bethel - house of God where God comes and dwells with His people.
A ladder is made of simple vertical beams and horizontal steps. An extension ladder is two ladders hooked together. Notice that a cross is made of a vertical beam and a horizontal crossbar and the cross too has an intersecting point. NO, the intersecting point is not so much where the vertical meets the horizontal but where the human receives what Christ has done on the cross - who hears God speak forgiveness and life from the cross - who hears God calling him to himself at the cross and responds with a spiritual act of worship offering his own body as a living sacrifice.
I want to share one of my favorite moments of worship. It was after ascending a hill… TABOR 1 a mountain… TABOR 2 Mt Tabor (4 slides). Terrifying taxi ride up. TABOR 3 Realizing what took place there. Hearing God speak more clearly than through any other bible account that Jesus is the one we worship. Even more than when the Spirit in the form of a dove came down and God said, “this is my son whom I love, I am well pleased with him.” On Mt Tabor, over looking Megiddo TABOR 4 - where Armageddon will take place, God made the statement loud and clear that Jesus alone ought to be worshipped. What took place here is more powerful then John saying John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Mark 9:2-8
Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) 7 Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" 8 Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus
Two things are clear -that Jesus is the ONLY object of our worship as we ascend to him and that Jesus speaks and acts toward us in worship - notice the first three things Jesus says form the cross - how he speaks and acts toward us: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." "Jesus said to his mother: "Woman, this is your son." Then he said to the disciple: "This is your mother." How can we not not worship the one who cares for us so much that even while he is becoming the ultimate once for all eternal sacrifice he speaks to us of forgiveness, of entering heaven and of making sure we are cared for (as he gave John to his mother he gives his Holy Spirit to us).
What we haven’t acknowledged is how much God initiates our encounters with him. Jacob was running from his brother, was running from his problems - was trying to get away when God interrupted his thoughts and plans. God surprises us, like when Moses was running away from his problems in a foreign land and God shows up in a bush that is burning but not being consumed or when Paul is on his way to throw Christians into prison and God makes him stop and listen through blind eyes. Ps 121:1-2 I lift up my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
JESUS IS THE LADDER
John 1:51 He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
Jesus does not show us the way to heaven -he is the ladder - he is the way - the only way to heaven. John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
No comments:
Post a Comment