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Did any of you feel a bit differently than usual this past week? I’m not talking

about anything weird or way out of the ordinary, but maybe just that feeling of

being a bit off?

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If you did the reason could be that this past week of January is believed by

many scientists to be the most depressing time of the entire year, beginning

with “blue Monday”.

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Scientists have calculated that there are six factors that make the week we just

lived through so depressing.

All these may certainly be contributing factors to the emotional lull that this

time of year brings about …

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… but let me suggest that blue Mondays in our lives may be due to something

else, something more basic to the human nature. It has to do with moments in

our faith such as we heard about in our Gospel lesson this morning. God

blesses us with truly beautiful glory moments in our life and in our faith.

Moments such as when Jesus was changed right before the eyes of His three

disciples Peter, James and John. For a few fleeting moments these men had a

glimpse of God’s glory. They were privileged to be spiritually and emotionally

lifted up with this mountain-top experience.

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But just as quickly as that moment came to them it was just as quickly gone.

As beautiful as that glimpse of heaven was for them Jesus instructed His

disciples they could not stay. They had to go back down the mountain. And to

top it all off they couldn’t even tell anyone what they had seen – not yet. That

would come later. Jesus told the disciples they had to get back to work here on

earth.

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And then the very first thing they run into at the bottom of the mountain was a

young man who was possessed by an evil spirit and until Jesus arrived on the

scene nobody was able to do help him. Nobody could get rid of this young

man’s demons. Welcome back to the real world. How’s that for a blue

Monday?

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So what’s the point? Well, in life we experience moments like the disciples did

on top of that mountain. Our lives are marked by life-changing, pivotal

moments in time. But as uplifting and as important as they are to us the real

challenge is what do we do with all the moments that come after them?

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What is just as important is when it comes time to come down off the

mountain, what is the next step?

While we won’t actually be studying the transfiguration of Jesus specifically

today, we are given insight into that important event as we turn to this section

of the Old Testament. In the same way seeing the fuller glory of Jesus

changed the lives of the disciples, so also Jacob’s dream had a lasting impact

on the next steps of his life.

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Because our lesson actually begins in the middle of the life story of Jacob

there is the assumption that we already know all this history. But maybe we

don’t, or maybe we’ve forgotten just who Jacob is. So let’s quickly review.

When the time came for God to begin putting into action His plan of sending

a Savior into this world, He called this man (Abraham) to come and live in the

land of Canaan. Upon Abraham’s arrival God promised that one day He would

make him into a great nation and his descendants would inhabit the whole

land. But there was a small detail that concerned Abraham. He and his wife

Sarah did not have any children and Sarah was unable to conceive. God didn’t

worry Himself with such details because when Abraham was 100 years old

God miraculously gave him and Sarah a son whom they named him Isaac.

We probably know Isaac best from the account where God calls on Abraham

to sacrifice him to prove his love for God. We also know that at the end of that

account God did not make Abraham go through with the sacrifice and instead

God provided a ram to take Isaac’s place. God was painting a picture of what

He was sending the Savior to do for the whole world – to be the sacrifice to

take our place. Isaac grew up and married a woman by the name of Rebekah

and eventually God blessed Isaac and Rebekah with twin sons Esau and

Jacob.

Esau was the firstborn and he got his name because he was red and hairy.

Jacob means “the deceiver” and he got his name because he was hanging

onto Esau’s heel when they were born – it is a picture of the personality of

Jacob – he was always trying to get ahead by relying on himself. This

personality of Jacob comes out later on as the boys grow older. Esau had

been out hunting all day and came home empty handed. Jacob had been

making stew. Esau was so hungry he demanded Jacob give him a bowl, but

rather than doing so graciously Jacob sold him lunch for his birthright, that is,

all the rights as the firstborn son.

Some time later when Isaac was old and getting close to death he was ready

to pronounce his birthright blessing and he wanted to give it to Esau. Rebekah

heard about this and came up with a way to trick Isaac, who was almost blind,

into giving the blessing to Jacob in stead. She put goat skins on Jacobs arms

and neck and had him dress in Esau’s clothes so that Isaac would think he

was giving the birthright blessing to Esau. Once again, Jacob’s deceptive and

self-reliant nature comes out.

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This, then is where today’s lesson begins. When Esau got back from hunting

and learned what his younger brother Jacob had done, he is furious. Even

though he had sold his birthright to Jacob he felt cheated and Esau held a

grudge against Jacob. He planned that after Isaac died he would kill Jacob.

What complicated all of this is part of the birthright blessing made Jacob the

next in line as far as the promise of the Savior. Remember, that promise had

been given to Abraham, he passed it on to Isaac, and now Isaac had given

that blessing to Jacob. To keep the promise alive Jacob had to remain alive.

So Rebekah tells Isaac and Isaac sends Jacob out of the country back to the

homeland – partly for safety and partly to find a believing wife. If Jacob is to be

the father of the family of the Savior he was going to need all the help he could

get.

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Now here’s the scene - Jacob leaves the land of Canaan running for his life.

He is the victim of his own deceitful ways. He is alone. He is afraid. And he has

about 500 miles ahead of him to reach the land of his ancestors. After traveling

as far as he can Jacob goes about 70 miles and he has to stop for the night.

He reaches an area by the village known as Luz.

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Here Jacob takes a rock for his pillow, beds down for the night, and as our OT

lesson told us - God sent Jacob an amazing dream. For a few brief moments

Jacob got to look through the gates of heaven and see what God had in mind

for him. Even though Jacob had received the birthright promise from his father

Isaac, God now personally restates that promise to Jacob Himself. As we

heard in our lesson God gave Jacob His wonderful promise to be with him in

the many days to come.

Now, to make the main point of today’s lesson, it is this moment in time (the

dream) that is most often studied. It is the glory moment, the mountain top

moment, if you will. I can find you a hundred different pictures depicting this

moment in time - the stairway to heaven dream. Human nature would suggest

this is the most important part of this interaction between God and Jacob.

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This is the only picture I could find of the next moment, the next step when our

lesson begins. This is the moment that is often overlooked. It is the middle of

the night and Jacob wakes up from his dream. For the first time in his life

Jacob comes to the realization that his faith is to be more than a passing

knowledge of our loosely formed relationship with holy God. Jacob’s realization

and this next step of faith for him, this maturing of faith, is made clear in the

name he chooses to speak about God - Jahweh – the name for the Savior

God.

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Because God had just restated the Savior promise directly to him, and

because God had made personal promises to him, for the first time Jacob was

beginning to grasp just how big and amazing his God really is. The word that is

translated as “afraid” is a bit misleading because Jacob was not so much filled

with fear as he was filled with awe. Jacob has a new found respect and

reverence for God. The dream and the promises of God were kind of a

mountain-top moment for Jacob, a pivotal moment in his life. And as important

as they were, just as important is what comes next. How would this man who

was afraid for his very life, who had gotten this far with his trickery and by

relying on himself, what would be his next step?

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That’s what makes this lesson so very, very difficult. Our human nature longs

for the mountain-top moments, and they are truly a blessing when God gives

them. But we long for them because such moments do not require much faith.

In such moments we get to sit back and just watch God do His thing. Our eyes

love it. Our hearts long for it. It’s a few fleeting moments of heaven here on

earth.

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But they don’t last. God never intends them to. They are pivotal moments

because God is getting us ready for what comes next … that next step …

when it’s time to come down off the mountain and go back to work, back to

facing the demons, back to our real world. It’s like this …

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The wedding is a blast. It is truly a gift of God. A few moments of being on top

of the world.

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But the next step, that’s the hard part. Each day after the wedding … learning

to compromise, to trust, to forgive, to be faithful, to be humble. Oh how we

wish we could go back to the top of the mountain.

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There are few things as thrilling as the excitement of getting ready to have a

baby. I still remember how proud I was when my wife told me I was going to be

a dad. I was on top of the world.

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But then the baby is born and day by day we learn having a child is not nearly

as exciting at times as expecting a child. Wait, let me back on top of the

mountain.

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Is it any wonder Peter had this great idea to put up three shelters and stay up

on top of the mountain. He knew what was down below. He didn’t want to go

back to it. That’s what sin has done to us. We were created for paradise, and

we know it deep in our hearts, so when we get little glimpses of it we don’t

want to let go.

But have you noticed that our human solutions to the demons of this life

usually depend on us, not God? What these men do to try and get to a better

place left God out of the equation. We do that too.

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We dream our dreams, but sadly they go something like this …

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Excuses clip

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God showed Jacob there was another way … a way that worked, and it had

everything to do with the very next step … would he now trust more in himself

and what he could do, or would he trust in what God said to him and what God

promised He could do for Jacob?

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From everything we know about Jacob this was the first time in his life he

simply took God at His word and believed. Instead of depending on himself

and his own schemes and plans to get ahead, God pushed Jacob’s faith to a

level where he was finally willing to put more trust in God than in Himself.

The lesson shows us this change in Jacob when he takes the stone that had

served as his pillow and he dedicates it as a religious marker, a memorial, to

what God had done here. Along with setting up this monument to God Jacob

renames this place from Luz the Bethel, which in Hebrew means “house of

God”. In Semitic culture as well as in Bible history a name change is done to

high-light the change of a life-situation. God did a name change for Abram to

Abraham, for Sarai to Sarah. Later, not far from this very place, when Jacob

returned to this land 20 years later God would change his name to Israel. He

would call him the father of His people.

How could Jacob change so much in one night’s time?

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After setting up this marker Jacob tells us how he changed. He makes a vow.

It is a spiritual promise based on faith. You know from the parenthesis that this

is one of those instances where the translation doesn’t quite do the job. The

translation makes it sound as if Jacob is bargaining with God, but nothing

could be further from the truth. The introductory word “IM” can mean “if” and it

is used to introduce conditional sentences. But it can also mean “since” as it

does here. What you need to know is that with each phrase of this vow, Jacob

is not speaking in future terms, but he actually uses the perfect tense. What

Jacob is saying is that he now views life in a completely different way. Instead

of worrying about the future and plotting to control as he had done in the past,

he now views everything from the perspective of God’s promises. The way he

says it is that he now looks at life as if all these things God had promised had

already happened. To Jacob they were as good as done. Jacob stopped trying

to control how his life turned out. He stopped trying to determine what was

right or wrong for his tomorrows. He was now going to leave all that in God’s

hands. The next step was God’s, not his.

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Remember, I mentioned Jacob’s name change 20 years later when he would

finally come back to this land. Jacob was by no means perfect. He still had his

flaws. But 20 years later before he would agree to go into the land and meet

his brother Esau he refused to take another step without God’s blessing. God

had taken a man who lived by fear and changed him into a man who lived by

faith.

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And you probably already figured this out on your own, but if the first part of

the condition has been misunderstood, that means the conclusion as been too.

The word “then” does not appear in the original and the conclusion comes out

a bit differently when you see or hear it from Jacob’s own lips. The verb

translation “will be” is also in the perfect and does not express a future

concept. It is a statement of what already is – Jacob acknowledges that

Jahweh, the Savior-God, is his God. But there is more. There is a play on

sounds. In our language we think of a play on words, but in the Hebrew it is a

play on sounds. You see, the name for the sovereign Lord and the verb “to be”

are from the same root. It comes out very similar to what God told Moses to

tell Israel as the God who sent him – the “I am who I am” kind of idea – the

kind of sound that resonates down to one’s heart. Jacob had finally learned to

stop playing God.

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And Jacob does not just say this, he means this. There are actually two parts

to this vow – the words and the actions. For the action part Jacob pledges one

tenth of his future income and blessings to the Lord. And of course if we are

thinking with our heads we fear here comes the money part of the sermon.

Actually, this is an encouragement to trust God so completely that tithing, as a

spiritual discipline, is an appropriate action of faith. But this part isn’t really

about money at all. While this was Jacob “putting his money where his mouth

was”, so to speak, it really isn’t about what was in his wallet. It was about what

was in his heart. Jacob commits to living in a way that embraced the fact that

since God was with him always, he was going to live every moment, he was

going to take every step, as if that were his mountain top.

Personally, what I think would be even cooler than tithing is if I had enough

faith to keep only 10% and give back the other 90% to God, after all it is all His

anyway and there is not enough of this stuff in the world to try and buy or

recreate paradise or the mountain-top moments anyway.

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Since this lesson really isn’t about our money, but about our hearts, then it’s

time to ask what is God trying to teach us through Jacob, or through His

disciples on top of the mount of Transfiguration? Part of who we are longs to

find some way to have a moment or two in time, a glory moment, where at

least in some small way we can have even a little of what these disciples of old

had. We hear it in a million different questions, usually beginning with phrases:

“What should I do when I am …” or “Where should I go when I am …” or

“When should I do this or do that when I am … “. See, the problem is we’re

asking the wrong questions and we’re thinking about the wrong “I am”. It’s time

to wake up from our dream that we can do anything to get to the top of the

mountain on our own. While God blesses us with momentary glimpses of

glory, there is no paradise here on earth and it doesn’t matter where you look:

work, retirement, relationships, free-time, family, life, death, whatever …

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… but there is one place, one mountain-top, where all our dreams come true.

God invites us to start viewing our lives from here, this mountain where His

own “I AM” closed the gates of hell and opened the gates of heaven for us.

And it is from this mountain God speaks His promises to us that give us hope,

and patience to wait for heaven, and a change of heart to live on this earth

trusting in Him alone. With hearts of more mature faith we can take our next

step for Him, because He took every step here, for us.

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Every step clip

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