Surely The Lord Is In This Place

Genesis 28:10-19a and Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
There are times in life when we can feel lost. That ever happen to you? Not physically lost in the sense of not knowing where we are, but lost in a deeper sense. We are adrift and uncertain about the future. Relationships we have counted on have broken down. Plans have unraveled. The path ahead is unclear and we feel off course. We find ourselves asking questions for which there seem to be no easy answers. What do I do, now? How can I go on? God promises, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” (Genesis 28:15)
Jacob knows that feeling. When we meet him in Genesis 28, he is not on a spiritual retreat. He is not on a pilgrimage. He is a fugitive. He has deceived his father Isaac. He has stolen the blessing intended for his brother Esau. Jacob is running for his life. The story does not begin with Jacob seeking God. It begins with God seeking Jacob. That is an important distinction.
We tend to think that God comes close to us when we are doing well spiritually and stays away when we are not. Yet Jacob’s story tells a different story. Jacob is running away. And God comes to him anyway. As night falls, Jacob stops to rest in the wilderness. In that lonely place, he dreams.
He sees a ladder—or perhaps better translated, a stairway—stretching between earth and heaven. Angels are ascending and descending upon it. Above it stands the Lord, who speaks words of promise, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” God’s presence is always with him. It is significant what God doesn’t say. God doesn’t lecture or recite Jacob’s failures or demand that Jacob first prove himself worthy. Instead, God gives promises. Kind of shocking isn’t it. Who is this God, anyway who does this?
Luther understood this deeply. At the heart of Lutheran theology is the conviction that God’s grace always comes before our response. God acts first. God speaks first. God loves first. We do not earn God’s presence. We receive it. That should be encouraging news for all of us. God finds Jacob and us precisely in the midst of brokenness. And perhaps that is where Psalm 139 speaks to us.
The psalmist says:
“Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?”
If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me.
These are poetic words, but they are more than that. They are an assertion of faith
God is present in the hospital room, in our grief, in our seemingly ordinary days. Often we recognize God’s presence only in hindsight. Looking back, we suddenly see that we were not as alone as we thought. We realize that God was sustaining us when we thought we were sustaining ourselves.
One of the challenges of faith is learning to trust God’s presence before we can see it clearly. There are times when darkness feels very real. There are times when prayers seem unanswered. There are times when life feels more like Jacob’s wilderness than Jacob’s dream. Yet the psalm insists that darkness is not dark to God.
The stairway connecting heaven and earth that Jacob saw in his dream points us forward to Christ himself. In John’s Gospel, Jesus refers to this very story om John 1:51 saying,
Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man
God enters our world, becomes flesh, and walks our roads and carries our sorrows. He finds us in our fears, failures and muddled wandering. And he says, once again, “I am with you. “Faith does not mean life suddenly becomes easy. Faith means we no longer face life alone. The diagnosis may still be difficult. The grief may still be painful. The uncertainty may still be real. But God is present. The Lord is in this place. We gather each week because God continually comes to us through Scripture, water and Word. He comes through bread and wine. He comes through the promises of Christ.
Perhaps today you feel a little like Jacob. You may be carrying regrets facing uncertainty, or in unfamiliar territory. If so, hear this good news. The God of Jacob has not changed. The God who searched for Jacob still searches for his people. The God who promised, “I am with you,” still keeps that promise. Surely the Lord is present in this place. Thanks be to God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.