Today’s author is Intentional Interim Pastor, Steve Sylvester.
“There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to Heaven”
I was never a Led Zeppelin fan (although I am certainly a fan of Robert Plant’s recent collaboration with Alison Krauss), but those are some good lyrics. I don’t know that Robert Plant actually realized when he wrote those lyrics that the idea of a “stairway to heaven” fit tightly with and was perhaps even inspired by Jacob’s dream in the desert. This episode in Jacob’s life came after he fled his brother Esau who wanted to kill him for tricking their father Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing that rightfully should have gone to his older brother. Alone for the first time in his life, Jacob laid down on the sand, put a rock under his head as a pillow and went to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed that there was a ladder that came down from heaven and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
A century and a half or so before “Stairway to Heaven” hit the Top 40, another song, “Jacob’s Ladder” was written. This African-American spiritual tells of the children of the Lord who “are climbing Jacob’s ladder,” on which “every round goes higher and higher.”
Make no mistake, these are vastly different songs. Robert Plant was writing about a fictional embodiment of capitalism who believed she could use her money to buy her way into heaven. “Jacob’s Ladder” came from the exceedingly real experience of enslaved persons whose dream was simply to be free. What these songs shared in common, however, was their direction. Plant’s protagonist is building a stairway into heaven, while those whose aspiration is freedom are also climbing upward. It’s easy to forget that the story that inspired them both goes in the other direction; Jacob is lying prone as the angels make their way down to him.
We sometimes, or maybe often, see our relationship with God as something that is our project. But that’s not the case. The reality is that God is always making God’s way to us. Our part is simply to, like Jacob, open our eyes and say, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” Once we do realize that God is here in our midst, it is well for us to listen and follow where God leads.