1 Introduction Ascending and descending: the spirituality of angels Gen 28:10-22 St Stephens Belrose Morning Services Nov 30, 2014 This morning we begin a new series: Angels at St Stephens. It s a subject we don t give much attention to. But since angels figure prominently in the nativity stories we thought it would be a good theme for this advent season, in the lead-up to Christmas. I guess the reason we don t give much attention to the subject of angels is because we sense they may be a distraction from the central gospel theme. And it is true that Paul warns the Colossian Christians to be wary of people who pride themselves on their worship of angels (2:18) and so lose touch with Christ. Ancient Gnosticism, for example, developed complex hierarchies of worlds inhabited by angels and in so doing spiraled off from the mainstream of orthodox Christianity. Medieval Catholicism included a rich and complex understanding of angels and heavenly beings and demonstrated this in extraordinary artistic depictions of angels on canvas and stone. Some of the Reformers saw these as objects of worship and so many of these images were destroyed particularly in the English Reformation. The tension about angels is evident in the well-known claim that medieval theologians debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. There is no evidence that this claim is true. It originated
2 in a mocking address by a Protestant clergyman in the 17 th century. But it took on a life of its own and came to represent Protestant skepticism about medieval interest in angels. Our hesitation about angels may well be influenced by this history. And yet if we are to be biblical Christians and to take the Bible seriously surely we must come to terms with the fact that angels appear throughout the scriptures, in both the OT and the NT. Jesus Himself believed in angels. He taught about them frequently and we are told he experienced their ministry on several occasions. So over the coming weeks we will be meditating on a number of scriptures that teach us about angels: what they are, what they do, what they teach us. And today we will make a start in Gen 28 by looking at the life of Jacob. Jacob encountered angels four times in his complicated life and I hope we can touch on each of these. But our main text and foundation will be Jacob s encounter with angels at what has come to be known as Jacob s ladder. This is the only ladder in the Bible! So I am glad I get to talk about this one! Let me tell you the story to this point. Jacob was Isaac s second son. But only just! He was a twin and his brother Esau was born first. When their Father was dying Jacob and his mother Rebekah tricked Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing that Isaac intended to give to Esau and which Esau expected. Once Isaac realized what had happened it was too late; he could not take the blessing back. But because of the tension between the two brothers Isaac sent Jacob away. He sent him back to their homeland some 700 kms away to find a wife amongst their relatives. And so Jacob flees his home and heads northwards. One night on his solo journey he stopped to rest and taking a stone for a pillow he went to sleep (I have been to hotels like that!). In the night he had a dream of a great stairway. It s base was on the earth and it reached up into heaven. He saw angels ascending and descending on the stairs or perhaps onto him. And then God himself spoke from the top of the stairs. God re-affirmed the promises he had made to Jacob s grandfather Abraham; promises of a land, and a nation and that through his descendants all peoples on earth will be blessed (14). When Jacob woke up he said to himself Surely the Lord was in this place how awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven. (16-17). He made a shrine there and called the place Bethel or house of God. And then he continued his journey.
3 So here is Jacob s first encounter with angels. In his dream he sees them ascending and descending upon the ladder or stairway. I must say I imagine a vast pair of escalators with some angels coming down and others going up. It is a brief encounter but I think it provides a wonderful image on which to base our thinking about angels. Jacob sees them moving between heaven and earth; bridging heaven and earth as it were. In that vision heaven is open and the life of heaven is pouring out and touching the earth. And in some sense earthly life is being swept up into heaven. Things of heaven descending; things of earth ascending. And so what I would like to do now is to explore this dynamic; this ascending/descending spirituality of angels. The first thing I d like to point out is that the angels have 1. A heavenly origin and an earthly mission Explanation Angels are heavenly creatures. In Job we see them surrounding God and in Revelation also, offering their praise. But angels are God s messengers. That is literally what the word angel means: a messenger. And as messengers they are sent into the world to speak, to announce, to judge, to warn. They have a heavenly origin but an earthly mission. Each angel or group of angels has its own specific mission. But each individual mission forms part of the greater mission of God in the world. It s what we see here in Gen 28. The angels ascending and descending form the visible element of the spoken message to Jacob. And this message is a renewal of God s covenantal promises to Abraham and to Isaac. It reassures the fearful Jacob that in spite of his trickery God s promises will be fulfilled through him. The outcome of this experience with angels is that Jacob continues his journey reassure that God is with him and that God will keep and protect him. I can imagine a different story altogether. Jacob has this vision of the stairway and the angels. He says to himself This is an awesome place! And he decides to stay there. This is where God is. This is the house of God. I am going to stay here and see if I can get up that stairway into heaven (song about this!). Think of the spirituality which that response would generate. Subjective. Experiential. Static. Other worldly. Instead in Gen 28 the angels propel Jacob forward on his journey and so to play his part in God s historical purposes. He will indeed marry and have 12 sons who will each become the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel.
4 Jacob s second encounter with an angel has the same dynamic. After 20 difficult years working for his fatherin-law Laban an angel appears to Jacob telling him to leave and to return home (31:10ff). It was becoming dangerous to stay and there was unfinished business with Jacob s brother Esau. And so guided by the word of an angel Jacob packs up his family and all his possessions and returns to the land of his birth. Again the angel comes from heaven with a very earthy mission: to protect Jacob and to bring him back to the promised land. Illustration Ez 47? Application The ascending and descending angels of Gen 28 teach us that God wants to connect heaven and earth. The angels move seamlessly from the presence of God into the world and into the course of history. They do so under the rule of their commander in chief; they do his will. They do so because God is at work on the earth and in and through human beings. This lays the foundation for a very distinctive kind of spirituality. It is sometimes said of people that they are so heavenly-minded that they are of no earthly use. But that will not be true of those who model their spirituality on the ascending/descending angels we see here in Gen 28. On the contrary the more we know God, the more we see him; the more earthy and connected and engaged we become with this world in which God has placed us. This is not a paradox, as if God is calling us to reconcile two opposite forces or to live in two contradictory dimensions at once. We Christians sometimes try to grasp this by thinking of ourselves as both natural and supernatural. Or sometimes we think of our lives in the flesh and in the spirit. This is an attempt to do justice to what the scriptures teach us about the whole of our existence. But the price we pay is a kind of schizoid, split-apart existence. Gen 28 provides a better model: the angels ascending and descending. A rhythm of life that takes us from the throne room of God to God s purposes on earth and back again. And just to make this more challenging I want you to notice something the early Fathers made much of about this text. Did you notice where the angels begin their journey on this great stairway? We read of them that they are ascending and descending. Their starting point is the earth! They are closer to us than we like to imagine!
5 But now I want to draw out another aspect of this ascending/descending spirituality. The angels are 2. Face to face with God and side by side with needy humanity Explanation In Matt 18:10 Jesus teaches that the angels always see the face of my Father in heaven To the angels and all the heavenly creatures is granted the blessed vision of God. To look always on the face of God is to live in a state of completed blessedness; to look upon the source of all that is good and beautiful and gracious and just. And in looking to become like God Himself, transformed by gazing upon his glorious character and purposes. This is one mode in the angelic spirituality: face to face with God. And then alongside that we can see that the angels enter into the human story very often at points of human weakness and need. When Elijah was fleeing Jezebel and dropped exhausted in the wilderness an angel came and provided a meal for him. When Joshua faced the first great challenge of the conquest of the promised land: the walled city of Jericho, an angel with a drawn sword came to him to tell him precisely how he was to overrun the city. After Jesus fasted for 40 days and did battle with the evil one, angels came and ministered to him. Angels: face to face with God and side by side with needy humanity. This is borne out in the third of Jacob s encounters with angels (Gen 32:22ff). Jacob was again in the midst of a journey. This time heading back to his home and facing the difficult prospect of a confrontation with his aggrieved brother again. One night when he was alone a mysterious being wrestled with him. They fought all night until the other man weakened and asked Jacob to let him go. Jacob would not. I will not let you go unless you bless me. The man did indeed bless him and gave him a new name, Israel, which means he struggles with God. Jacob received the blessing just when he needed it. But from that day on he walked with a limp because the angel touched the socket of his hip and dislocated it. This is Jacob the trickster, the twister, the supplanter, the manipulator. And in the person of an angel God comes to his side to prepare him for the challenge of the following day. Angels then live in the presence of God and draw alongside human beings in their time of need. Illustration I was once in very great distress walking up Universal Drive in Henderson Auckland. I was weeping as I pushed my bike up the footpath. Just then a big
6 black Ford Fairlane passed by on the other side of the road. The driver must have done a U-turn because a moment later it pulled up alongside me. Out jumped a Maori woman dressed in black from head to toe and with Maori tattoos on her face. Coming around the vehicle she stepped up on to the footpath and gave me a long, soothing hug. We exchanged a few words and she got back into her car and drove away. I never saw her again. An angel? Well she certainly came to me in a moment of very great need. And that s what angels do. They come from heaven to draw beside us in our very human need. Application This teaches us something wonderful about our God. He is God, great and powerful, with a plan and a purpose which extends from one end of history to the other. And yet he is also a deeply compassionate God. He knows us. He knows that we are a needy people. He sees us in our weaknesses and our limitations. And he loves us. He sends his angels to people like us at their moment of distress and need. He does this because he is gracious and kind towards us. And this truth should shape our spirituality as well. Our experience of God, our knowledge of God, our encounters with God must not have the effect of making us withdraw from the world. On the contrary. To know our God leads us out into the world and into the affairs of men and women. If we ascend into the presence of God then we are very soon descending into the world of human affairs. And there in the all too familiar world of human needs and struggle it is not long before we are in prayer again ascending once more to seek God. Ascending/descending. Like the angels connecting heaven and earth. We should beware then of a spirituality which offers only an encounter with God; only an experience of the heavenly realm. And which seeks to separate us from the world into which God sends us. This spirituality offers all heaven and no earth. And we should be wary too of a spirituality which sends us out into the world without also allowing us gaze upon the face of our heavenly Father. All earth and no heaven. And we should resist also the idea that we Christians live in two modes which are opposed to each other: the heavenly mode and the earthly mode. As if we have to build our own inner bridge between heaven and earth. There is already such a bridge. And that is because the heart of God is for humanity. There are two great commandments aren t there? The first is to love God with all that we have. And the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is how Jesus summarises the duty of the godly person. The first takes
7 us into the presence of God in worship. And the second drives us out into the world with our neighbour s interests at heart. This is normal biblical spirituality, connecting heaven and earth. And of course we see this bridge, this connection in the person of Jesus. He is at once a man and the Son of God. And his is a ministry of reconciliation between God and humanity. As Paul puts it God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19). Dear friends, this is what the Lord has been teaching us over the years here at St Stephens. To know our God and to encounter Him in the Spirit sends us out into the world with a compassionate heart for a needy world. To have a true charismatic experience of God leads immediately to a heightened awareness of our social responsibility in the world. And that responsibility must lead us back again to draw on God s enabling power. Ascending/descending. Connecting heaven and earth. Face to face with God and side by side with needy humanity. the dynamic exchange between heaven and earth of which we are a part. When Jesus spoke of his second coming he almost always described himself coming on the clouds of heaven. Now we are familiar with the clouds which pass across the sky. We see them everyday. But I am sure what Jesus has in mind is not the white puffs of vapour we see but something more wonderful. These clouds are the angels en masse. In Matt 25:31 he describes it this way: When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him And it the same in John 1:51. But there he puts it in a different way. He tells his disciples I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Jesus himself is the stairway; the bridge between heaven and earth. And the angels ascend and descend upon him. And in this we see the loving purpose of our God whose heart is for the world. May we too climb upon that stairway; from the troubles of this world into the presence of God and back again. Conclusion So Jacob s vision of the angels gives us a helpful way to think about the ministry of angels and of our own ministry. I find it helpful anyway to grasp something of