Kingdom Harbor

“This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Genesis 28:17

“You will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” John 1:51

One of my all-time favorite stories in the Bible is about Jacob in Genesis 28:10-17. Jacob is wandering scared in the desert, thirsty, lonely, doubting God’s promises and his own future. He lies down to sleep, with his head on a stone pillow (ouch!), and is given a dream of a stairway connecting God’s Heavenly abode with Jacob’s dry and desolate earthly abode. God’s radiant presence in Heaven suddenly bursts our mistaken notions of his apparent absence from us. 

Angels are seen going up and down, running God’s errands I suppose. What kinds of angel-errands, you ask? I suppose they are busy watching over God’s tired soldiers so weary from the fight, with bodies aching and the light of this earthly life beginning to grow dim. Angels standing guard over God’s faithful children, saved sinners longing for Home, all those beginning to think more about the glories of their future Heavenly body than trying to prolong our life in these old worn out bodies. 

Imagine you are Jacob and this is your dream tonight. Look more closely at those angels and tell me: Are they empty handed as they descend and ascend? I suspect these majestic creatures are capable of carrying heavy loads of God’s love, encouragement, grace and assurance as they come bounding down to earth in search of beleaguered disciples. I bet they are even glowing with the light of Christ’s own divine radiance as they leave His Royal Court, and then use that light to pierce the darkness that someones seems to overwhelm us. 

For some reason, I’m thinking of Tinker Bell from Peter Pan right now—all aglow, zipping about leaving a trail of light. Pixie dust may be a Disney fantasy; but Christ’s light is the real light that ignited the stars in the beginning, and now Jesus sends angels on mission to remind you and me of his words: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

If these angels bring God’s light and love down that holy staircase, shining rays of hope into your desert moments and mine, what then do you think they bring back up with them when they ascend the staircase into God’s Holy Presence? In running an errand for my dad as a boy, I remember him saying, “Now don’t return empty-handed.” Would our Heavenly Father, then, allow his angels to return empty-handed? 

I suspect they return to the father bent over under the weight of our sorrows, our sins, our deepest longings, our most desperate prayers, and our fears of tomorrow and regrets from the past—bringing them all to the loving attention of our Merciful Father. Up they ascend, gladly lifting some of our burden and lightening our load—helping us heed God’s invitation to “Cast all your cares upon the Lord, for he cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7).

Let me ask a more basic question: Do you think much about angels at all? This is one area where my Protestant heritage slighted me a bit. Talk of any “mediators” between us and God sounds suspiciously Roman Catholic to many Protestants. “We can go directly to the Throne in prayer!” we boast. “We don’t need guardian angels or the intercession of saints.”

Whether or not that’s true, the fact remains that the Bible clearly teaches us that God has populated his Creation with angelic beings. Their chief task is to serve God in his ongoing work of redeeming and protecting his human image bearers, so that His Kingdom continues to advance through the Church, coming against all the powers of evil and darkness that oppose Him and his Kingdom purposes. 

My professor, Scot Mcknight, recently published a book called The Hum of Angels, and it did wonders to make up for my lack of knowledge and interest in angels, despite all my theological education. I now find the idea of guardian angels totally realistic, though we can’t say much for certain about them. I hope you will also find comfort knowing that God has an angel keeping tabs on you these days. Indeed, perhaps we will be meeting our guardian angel sooner than we think, when our day of ascent final arrives. 

So, may I encourage us to spend some time this week meditating on that stairway from Jacob’s dream. Maybe you feel as though Jesus is nowhere present in your life situation right now. Maybe your life feels like a desert wasteland and you are panting for any sign of God’s loving presence. Jacob thought God was no where to be found in his desert experience, that he had been abandoned and his future looked bleak. Do you remember what happens next in the story? After his dream of the descending and ascending angels, he awakens to declare these heart-warming words:

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 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” (Gen. 28:16-17).

Sometimes God doesn’t remove us from the dry and lonely place, but instead pulls back the curtain and reminds us that He wants to fill it with his refreshing presence. He doesn’t always take us out of the wilderness and into His house. He instead transforms the desert place into an “awesome place…none other than the house of God!” 

That’s my prayer for you and me. That God would show himself. That God will give you supernatural vision to see that your unpleasant situation may also be a place where angels are quietly, continuously, descending and ascending, trafficking God’s blessings and promises, and shining his light and love into your dim and dire circumstances. 

Finally, I would be a poor preacher of the gospel if I neglected to show what Jesus does with this story. In John 1:51, Jesus is calling his first disciples and picks up on Jacob’s dream to dazzle his would-be followers with a mind-blowing truth. He says that all who keep company with him will see “greater things.” What kind of great things? They “will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”

Jesus is the very gateway of Heaven now walking the earth. All heavenly traffic now flows through Jesus, and all who are “in Christ” find themselves abiding forever at the epicenter of God’s supernatural activity and presence! 

I  certainly haven’t grasped all that that means, but I think the disciples were watching heaven touching earth every time he did a miracle. I think Jesus taught us to pray a little bit of Heaven down that ladder every time we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in Heaven.” In Jesus’ day, God’s people believed the Temple in Jerusalem was  quite literally the place where Heaven and Earth overlapped.

In Christ’s incarnation Heaven and Earth now came together and “kissed” wherever God’s Spirit dwells—and the holy temple is no longer a pile of stones in Jerusalem, but inside the heart of every Spirit-indwelled believer. This mind-expanding realization should have us declaring every time we gather with fellow believers in worship, or fellowship, or across a table for coffee: “Surely the Lord is in this place! How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:16-17).

May God open our eyes to see His presence, and know his angel servants are busy trying to bring more of Heaven down to us, as well as carrying our burdens back up and placing them at the feet of our loving Savior and merciful Father. Amen. 

A repost from 2019.