Sermon for the Fifth Wednesday and Thursday of Lent - Jacob's Dream
2025 Fifth Wednesday/Thursday of Lent - Genesis 28:10-22
As I reflected on Joseph’s dream and the power of dreams, I was reminded of an episode from the TV show from yesteryear, MASH. In this particular episode, the Mobile Army Surgery Hospital is inundated with wave after wave of wounded soldiers for multiple days because of a sustained multi-day battle. The surgeons and nurses and everyone else are exhausted. Even though everyone was exhausted and a half step from collapsing, no one wanted to go to sleep because of the dreams. The episode focused on Hawkeye’s dreams in which he was a chronic failure because he didn’t pay sufficient attention in medical school. The bodies of the soldiers and their severed parts were coming so fast that he knew he could never be good enough, fast enough, smart enough, to save them. He was wracked with feelings of guilt, anger, and helplessness, that were quickly spiraling down into hopelessness.
That memory came to me because I wondered what Jacob should have been dreaming about. We hear this mystical incident in the life of Jacob without context. Once we recall the context, that Jacob receives this dream and its promise at all, is all the more astonishing.
Joseph is in the city of Luz. He is on his way to his mother’s brother. His reason for traveling to Haran is two-fold. First, Dad and Mom have decided that it is time that he gain a wife. The local girls are not good enough for Rebeka, so Isaac sends Jacob off to get a wife from his mother’s people. The second, and more pressing reason, is that Jacob’s elder brother Esau is harboring murderous rage against him.
Jacob has manipulated Esau’s birthright from him. Then, while Esau was out hunting for game, Jacob, with assistance from Mom, tricked his near blind father Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing that is only conferred upon the eldest. So, Jacob has stolen two essential gifts from him that are part of his natural inheritance as the eldest boy in the family. And, he has disrespected his father by taking advantage of him in his old age and illness. Jacob, in short, needs to leave town in a bad way.
Jacob is a trickster, a deceiver, and a cunning thief. We might suspect, perhaps even hope, that he struggles with some sense of remorse for all that the turmoil he created. Did he have dreams that accused him of his sins? Did he have night terrors because in his dreams he thought his brother and those loyal to him were sneaking up on him to enact revenge? We don’t know anything about those dreams, if he had them. What we do know is what the Holy Spirit sees fit for us to know about Jacob. We should note well that the Holy Spirit not only blesses us with the knowledge of Jacob’s dream in the city of Luz, but the Holy Spirit also makes plain to us that God blesses those who do not deserve it. Based on his actions, Jacob is not worthy to receive the blessing that the Lord bestows upon him. While Jacob’s actions are reprehensible, he is a man of faith in the one true God. In the perfectness of God’s freedom, it suits God’s purposes to reveal the ladder, the angels, Himself, and his promises to Jacob.
The one dream of Jacob that we know about is this amazing, breath-taking, vision of the interconnectedness between heaven and earth. Angels are busy doing angelic business. They are not standing around idly. They are going up and they are coming down the ladder. They are about the business of the Lord. Overseeing it all is the Lord God.
The visuals of the dream are amazing enough as they are. But what we most need to attend to are the words of promise that are now passed onto the third generation. This is the promise that was originally given to Abraham, then Isaac, and now Jacob. The promise remains the same: land, children and descendants for generations to come, God’s ongoing presence with Jacob and his family, present and future, and that they exist to be a blessing to all the families of the world.
The one blessing that no other family line in the world can claim is the birth of Jesus Christ. The promise that began with Adam and Eve, that continued because of Noah’s faith in the One true God, continues through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their offspring. In Genesis 22, the Lord gave us the awareness that a son will be offered as a sacrifice and be a substitute for our own sin. Now, in this dream, we are reassured that Jacob will indeed find a wife and he will produce many children, and God’s promise of the ultimate blessing to all the families of the earth will continue unabated.
In the fullness of God’s time, Jesus, true God and true man, was born of Mary in Bethlehem. Thirty-three years later Jesus became our substitute through his death. He is our sacrificial lamb that takes away our sins. His blood is shed so that Jesus endures the Father’s wrath for our sin. Jesus receives our sin so that we receive His forgiveness. The gift of Jesus’ forgiveness and promise of eternal life in heaven are available to all who respond with faith in Him as our Lord and our God. This is not a dream, but the fulfillment of the promise the Lord made to Jacob.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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