Where God Is

Genesis 28:10-19a     Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Then Jacob woke 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.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel;

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It used to be that when I read this story of Jacob I would get stuck on the notion of a stone for a pillow. I thought, a stone for a pillow? there’s no way that works. That’s where I got hung up. Never mind the ladder to heaven, with angels climbing up and down. Never mind the Lord just showing up, standing beside him and telling Jacob what his future will be. I didn’t think twice about any of that because I couldn’t get past the idea of laying down for a night’s sleep with a stone for a pillow.

Until one day at a church camp. I went hiking with a few others. We hiked up to a place they called the Bald Spot.  In the mountains of Pennsylvania, where just about every surface is covered in trees, there is an area way up high that is covered in white rock.  When you see it from the ground and just looks like a bald spot on the mountain’s head. 

The climb up there is long and hard; we stopped to rest once along the way and, believe me, I would have stopped again, but for the peer pressure that kept me going.  So when we reached the bald spot I was as tired as I know how to be. 

I looked out over this site and it was marvelous – this beautiful vista of mountain ranges out to the west as deep and wide as the eye could see. Then right in front of me I looked down on the Bald Spot and saw a delightful thing: somebody, sometime, had arranged large flat stones into furniture – big chairs and sofas from slabs of rock. Picture Fred Flintstone’s living room.  So I took my tired body and I sat down in a stone-age recliner and I thought of Jacob.

It was then I had an inkling of how tired Jacob was, that he would lay his head on a slab of stone and call it rest. If you are tired enough any surface, hard or soft, will do to rest your weary head.  Jacob was bone-tired when he stopped for the night – weary in body and mind and soul.  We know this, because we know where he was coming from.

Jacob and his twin brother Esau were the sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac favored Esau, the elder, and Rebekah favored Jacob. That, by itself is not unusual. I have heard it said the first child is the father’s child and the second child is the mother’s child, so I guess it happens often enough. But there was a special reason Rebekah favored Jacob.

When she carried the twins in her womb she heard a word from God that the elder of the two would serve the younger. Jacob, the younger, would take the place of Esau, the elder. And Rebekah, apparently, felt it was her responsibility to facilitate that.

When the time came, Rebekah and Jacob schemed to take Esau’s blessing.  Their father Isaac, in his old age, and with dimming eyesight, asked his son Esau to come to him to receive the blessing due to him as the eldest son.  But while Esau was out hunting game to offer his father, Jacob came in his place pretending to be Esau.  Isaac, unaware of the deception, gave him his blessing. 

The ancient people who told these stories to one another believed there was real power at work in the blessing. It was a gift, and once given it could not be taken back. Jacob received Esau’s blessing, the inheritance of the firstborn son, and that was that. So Esau really did have his birthright taken away from him.

He casually gave it away for a bowl of soup. But he didn’t really believe that he was giving it away. Now he realizes it is gone. And he’s angry – angry enough to kill.

Jacob fled from the family home. He ran and got as far as this place which was no place, and he stopped for the night. He was tired, he was weak, he was worn. He laid his body down on the hard ground, a stone beneath his head, and he slept. And he dreamed.

He dreamed of a ladder going between heaven and earth, and angels of the Lord climbing up and down that ladder, between heaven and earth.

And God stood beside Jacob and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

And Jacob awoke from his dream, knowing that the Lord was in this place. And he took the stone that was his pillow, stood it up on end and poured oil over it, anointing it. Jacob will remember this place, where God spoke to him. Before, it was no place; now it was Bethel, the house of God.

It’s what we sometimes call the church, our sanctuary – a special place and we have missed being in it together. Because when we come here to this place we know that God is here with us. But during these past few months we have made the sacrifice of not being here together for the sake of our health. We had to adjust in some ways we never imagined we would – like watching a worship service on a small screen, or settling for just reading the bulletin and the sermon later on.

Yet we know that, although we have been unable to gather in the house of God, we have not been without God. We know from the story of Jacob, and countless others in the scriptures, that when we are weary, when we are at our end, God is there.

When Jacob was on the run from Esau … When Elijah was on the run from Jezebel … When the Israelites were on the run from Pharaoh … God was there.

Wherever we are in our journey, we may be assured that God is there. And it is a comfort, a source of strength, for a tired and weary and wandering people.

Much sacred music comes from a place of being tired and weary and lost, and finding that God is present in those places with us. It’s as old as the psalms the people of Israel sang together in worship – we, like they, need to remind ourselves that God is with us everywhere, but most especially where we need God most, where we are bone tired and lost and alone.

It was that way for a man named Thomas Dorsey, a talented musician. In the 1920’s and 30’s he divided his talents between the jazz clubs and the church. He loved them both, and his love of jazz helped him to develop his own style of spiritual music that might have seemed irreverent to some, but became well loved by many.

In 1931, he kissed his pregnant wife goodbye in Chicago and drove down to St. Louis to attend a gospel convention where he was to perform. Everything was going well. After he got off the stage, he was handed a telegram that said, “Come home. Your wife has died.”

She had died giving birth to their firstborn son. The infant died a day later. One day Thomas Dorsey had everything, the next day, nothing.

He was lost in his grief. He didn’t perform, he didn’t compose, he didn’t know what to do anymore. Until finally, a friend gently led him to a piano; he sat down and composed this song:

Precious Lord, take my hand;

Lead me on, let me stand;

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.

Through the storm, through the night,

Lead me on to the light;

Take my hand Precious Lord,

Lead me home.

The gift of music brought him back – back to the knowledge of the presence of God. He poured out his feeling, his need, his prayer in this song. And the Lord answered his prayer, leading him on, through the storm, through the night, to the light.

This was neither the first nor the last time Thomas Dorsey would be tired and weak and worn. He had been lost before and it would happen again, but every time the Lord would lead him home.

As the Lord led the people of Israel, God will lead us through all our wilderness journeys. As the Lord led Jacob, God will lead us through times of fear, of confusion, of feeling abandoned. Wherever you are, God is with you and there is no place God will abandon you. Call on the name of our Precious Lord to take your hand and lead you on.

Photo: By Unknown author - British Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76427100