Normally, on the days the Lord stirs me to share, I’m perfectly happy to have brief exchanges over the chapter I just read in my morning devotions. Not this morning. This morning I wish we were live & I could say, “Open your Bibles to Genesis 28” and we could have a legit lesson.

So I’ll just point you that direction. Jacob, the heel grabber, has just cheated his brother Esau for the 2nd time. 1st his birthright then his blessing. The scene in the wake of discovery is heart-wrenching, Esau weeping loudly to Isaac, “Do you have only 1 blessing, my father?”

Rebekah, the scheming mother, overhears Esau planning to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac dies so she sends him to her brother in Haran. On the way, Jacob stops for the night, lays his head on a stone & has a dream. “A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching the sky and

God‘s angels were going up & down on it. The Lord was standing there beside him saying, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham & the God of Isaac... all the peoples on earth will be blessed thru you & your offspring.’”Jacob awakens, startled. Knows it’s no ordinary dream.

Says, “What an awesome place this is! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.” Names it Bethel meaning house of God. Turn in your Bibles please :) to John 1:47-51. The 1st few disciples are encountering Jesus for the 1st time. Philip brings Nathaniel

to Jesus who greets him as if he already fully knows him, which of course he does. “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there’s no deceit.” Plays on 2 names: Deceit plays off Jacob meaning deceiver. Israelite, because God renamed Jacob Israel (something like “struggled with God”).

Nathaniel wants to know how Jesus knew him. Jesus answers, “I saw you under the fig tree.” Jesus & Nathaniel alone know the significance. I so love that. But the significance of what follows is not lost on any of us: Nathaniel exclaims “You are the Son of God, King of Israel!”

Then Jesus says the most astounding thing. “Amen, amen. I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” ON Him. The “you will” now becomes plural. “All of you will.” It was stuff like this that captured me at 27 for life.

The original scene with Jacob is only 28 chapters into the entire canon of Scripture. Likewise, the reference to it falls among the very 1st scenes of John’s Gospel, tied together with absolute perfection. The offspring had come through whom the promise would be fulfilled: Jesus.

Jesus reveals Himself as the very embodiment of Bethel. He IS the House of God. Furthermore, He doesn’t just elaborate on the ladder. He IS the ladder, the solitary connection between heaven and earth and the singular means of entering that open gate. It’s absolute perfection.

Jesus is Jacob’s dream made flesh and dwelling among them.

Oh man, don’t you see? Don’t you see how beautifully, how intricately, the whole story was put together? The Bible is not a book of haphazard happenings, too fractured to piece together. It is an unfolding masterpiece.