Lectio Divina from the Jesse Tree
JACOB’S DREAM – Day 6 🪜
Genesis 28:10-22
“This stone.”
In the scriptures, Luke 19:40, we’re told that even the stones will cry out to praise the Lord should man remain silent. If it weren’t for this sentiment I should like to think I’d never give another thought to the life of stones. Except, here is Jacob, tired from a days journey, and desiring to rest, since the sun had already set and darkness overcast his steps, he finds himself a nice stone to put under his head like a pillow and falls asleep. Now I’ve also had my share of hard pillows to contend with in life and I can tell you none of them have brought me sleep enough to dream, and yet Jacob not only dreams a dream, he dreams of Heaven and a stairway with angels walking up and down!
“How awesome this place is! This nothing else but the House of God, the gateway of Heaven!”
His dream encounter produces a right response. So vivid is his experience while sleeping on this stone that he makes a vow to make the Lord his God and to return to this stone!
This stone upon which he encountered the Lord in a dream has such a profound impact on him that we are told when he awakes, he anoints the stone with oil and sets it as a sacred pillar. And in the fashion of the Lord, he changes the name of the place where this stone rests from Luz or “place of Light” to Bethel “house of God.”
“This stone that I have set up as a sacred pillar will be the house of God. Of everything you give me, I will return a tenth part of it without fail.”
Imagine having a dream so vivid that it changed the course of your life, awakened your soul, and infused you with so much awe that you started making vows to God to give him a tenth of everything you owned. Would you make your pillow a sacred altar and vow to make it the house of God? No of course not, unless what you dreamed was something more than words express, something only eyes can see in a dream.
This stone was not just any stone. Nor the ladder just any ladder. Jacob received not only the Promise of God to make his descendants a blessing, he received the promise of the stone the builders rejected. What else could make his heart leap so except the knowledge of God’s plans to bring forth from him the cornerstone!
Jacob’s dream is more than a promise to carry on the blessing of his father Isaac, it’s an invitation to intimacy to know the Will of God. An invitation God will give to his descendants David and later to a man named Joseph from Bethlehem who too will be infused by the Will of God revealed to them in dreams.
“I am with you and will protect you wherever you go.”
Such is the nature of dreams, they not only reveal to us the inner workings of our heart and mind but they are places to encounter the inner workings of the heart and mind of God. No matter where we are, awake or asleep, God promises to be with us, watching over us, even protecting us from dashing our foot upon a stone. But as for dreaming with God, there’s no better place to lay one’s head than on His Rock.
Sweet dreams and visions of Heaven.
This year’s Advent Meditations are brought to you through the use of the Jesse Tree Journal by the Disciple of Christ – Education in Virtue at OpenLightMedia.com. Visit their site for a copy of the Jesse Tree Advent Journal and begin your own journey to #EncounterHim
