Biblical Stories of Awakening: Jacob

Today I am back to the series on Biblical Stories of Awakening. I am talking about one of my favorite characters in the Bible, the patriarch Jacob. There are two stories of awakening in the Biblical account of his life. They are both important so I am going to take two episodes to deal with them. The first occurred when he was a young man known as Jacob, and the second when his name was changed to Israel.

Transcript

Today I am back to the series on Biblical Stories of Awakening. I am talking about one of my favorite characters in the Bible, the patriarch Jacob. There are two stories of awakening in the Biblical account of his life. They are both important so I am going to take two episodes to deal with them. The first occurred when he was a young man known as Jacob, and the second when his name was changed to Israel.

The fact that there are two accounts of spiritual awakening during Jacob’s life tells us something important. Spiritual awakening is not necessarily a one time event. It is a process that may unfold over a period of years. That is what happened in Jacob’s life. There was an initial opening to awareness of spiritual reality, and then a later fuller awakening that was so transformative that he took on a new name.

The same sort of thing happened in my life. I have shared previously that it took three experiences over a period of forty years - each one twenty years apart - for nondual awareness to emerge. That does not even count my prior evangelical conversion, which was also a spiritual experience. That was more of a faith commitment than a mystical experience. 

The apostle Paul says that he had several experiences which he calls “visions and revelations of the Lord.” He first had some sort of vision of Jesus on the Damascus Road. That is typically called his conversion experience. Then later he had a mystical union with Christ, where he says he was caught up to the third heaven “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows” he wrote. He says he “was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.”  That prompted him to write in his earliest letter, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me!” 

Those who are on a spiritual quest have likely had mystical experiences. Spiritual awakening is not a one off, as they say nowadays, although that expression never has made much sense to me. It is a process. It is an unfolding. Even the most dramatic nondual awakening continues to grow in depth with the years as this shift in perspective is integrated into everyday human life.

Now back to Jacob. I like Jacob because he was not the type of guy you would expect this to happen to. It points to the fact that it is about grace. Jacob was not particularly religious or spiritually-minded. He was a scoundrel from the time of this birth – even before his birth. The story of his birth says that he was fighting for the position of first-born while in his mother’s womb. He came from the womb holding onto his twin brothers heel trying to pull him back. For that reason he was named Jacob, which means supplanter or deceiver. 

He lived up to his name. He tricked his twin brother Esau out of his birthright by buying it from him for a pot of pottage when his brother was very hungry and begging for food. He later deceived his elderly father Isaac who was blinded by cataracts. He pretended to be his brother Esau and thereby stole the patriarchal blessing. So Esau, who was the firstborn, was tricked out of his inheritance by Jacob. 

That understandably made Esau furious. Esau was so angry that he plotted to kill Jacob. So upon the advice of this mother, Jacob fled for his life, running to his uncle Laban’s house back in Mesopotamia. It was on the first night of this trip that Jacob had a dramatic spiritual experience. It was what we might call today a mystical or nondual experience.

Jacob was alone for the first time in his life in the middle of nowhere in the wilderness, afraid and lonely. He laid down on the ground and pulled up a rock for a pillow and fell asleep. He had a dream that is commonly known as Jacob’s ladder. 

He saw a ladder set up between heaven and earth - a stairway to heaven, to use Led Zeppelin’s phrase. He saw angels of God, messengers ascending and descending upon this stairway. And he heard the voice of God, who repeated to Jacob the promise that God had made to his grandfather Abraham about land, descendants and blessing, which can be interpreted literally or spiritually. We looked at that in the episode about Abraham. 

The unique thing about Jacob’s story is that it says he woke up. This is to be taken both physically and spiritually. The story says: “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”

Jacob woke up from the dream of human life. He woke up to the spiritual reality that was all around him. He bedded down for the night feeling all alone in the world. Afraid for his life and heading into the unknown. But in this vision-dream he realized that God was present in that place. 

He called this awesome. “How awesome is this place!” It was awe-inspiring. His eyes were open to the spiritual reality that was always present but his eyes and mind had been closed to it. He called this place in the wilderness the house of God and the gate of heaven.

Jacob went on to erect a memorial stone at that spot and called it Bethel, meaning house of God. Later in the history of Israel this spot became a holy place, and a shrine was built there that predated and rivaled the later Jerusalem temple. 

The important point is that he awoke to the spiritual reality that is all around us all the time, but which most people do not see. That experience did not mean that only that place was sacred but that every place is sacred. Every place is the house of God and the gate of heaven; everywhere is filled with the presence of God. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning famously wrote:

Earth's crammed with heaven,
 And every common bush afire with God,
 But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
 The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”

Her biblical reference was to the story of the burning bush of Moses, which we will explore in another episode, but it is equally true of Jacob’s ladder. Every place is Bethel, the house of God. The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out over the earth, but people do not see it, Jesus said. It is all around us in nature and it is in us. 

In his teaching Jesus referred to this story of Jacob’s ladder and interpreted it to refer to the Kingdom of Heaven that was present in him. When Jesus calling Nathanael to be his disciple, Nathanael noticed something deeply spiritual about Jesus. But Jesus replied to him, saying, “You ain’t seen nothin yet.” That is a paraphrase. Actually he said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” 

Jesus was saying that Nathanael would have the same experience as Jacob. The phrase “Son of Man” means human being;  it was also Jesus favorite term to refer to himself, because of its double reference to an apocalyptic figure in the Book of Daniel. Jesus was saying that he was Jacob’s ladder. In him was the Presence of God manifested. Jesus was also saying that all of us are Jacob’s ladder. We all are all “sons of man,” human beings, sons and daughters of man and woman. 

We are the house of God and the gate of heaven. We are Jacob’s Ladder. To see that is to wake up. To wake up all we need to do is look within. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you, Jesus said. And it is all around us. Jesus said, “I am the All. Cleave a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up a stone, and You will find Me there.” The spiritual awakening of Jacob is available to all of us as our spiritual birthright as children of God.