Stones. I’m not really sure what caused me to start thinking about them and their relevance in the Bible. I was just sitting around several days ago and the thought came to me. That’s usually how these blogs start. A random thought becomes an inspiration to me, and sometimes that thought won’t leave me alone until I sit down at the computer and hammer out some words. It can be a blessing…and a curse. At 2:37 AM I’m not in the mood to get up and type, but if I don’t, it generally means I’m not going back to sleep.
Anyway, stones. In the next few weeks, I am traveling back in time and looking at some of the pivotal moments where stones played a central part of God’s story. And our story.
Stones. Part 1
He’s not that different from you and me. And even though we wag our judgmental finger at him, if we are honest there are times when we are no better. Which makes Jesus’ sacrifice, mercy, and forgiveness even sweeter. But Jesus’s story is for another day. Today it is Jacob we are looking at. We start in this chapter of his life where things are quickly spiraling out of control. The bad son, and even worse brother…the conniving, birth-right taking, blessing stealing, son of Isaac, packs his suitcase, flees the family farm, and heads toward the land of his mother’s family. What choice does he have? He has burned pretty much every bridge at home. His brother Esau hates him…wants him dead to be exact. He lied to his dad, so that relationship is on shaky ground. His mother is the sole standout. She tells Jacob to leave. Jacob heeds the advice of the one person on his side, and leaves. The Bible says he eventually came to a certain place, and because he was tired, he decided to spend the night. Four decades earlier Abraham came to this same place and had his own encounter with God. So, there was something special about this location. But this was not a Sandals Resort. There were no swim up bars, or a perfect beach setting with crystal clear water. Just an indiscriminate town, and Jacob is tired of walking, so he lays down. But he needs a pillow. And since he forgot his posture-pedic, feather-stuffed one back home, he grabs the nearest thing he could lay his head on. Now, let me interject something here. If you’ve ever served in the military and been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the other “stans”, you know that lugging your gear around for hours, from one place to another, and then being told to go wait with that large group over there, you get tired. You sit down and anything and everything becomes comfortable, including the stone you decide to use as a resting spot for your head. Nothing new here…Jacob did the same thing thousands of years ago.
In no time, Jacob is sound asleep…probably snoring like nobody’s business. And then he dreamed. A strange dream about a ladder and angels. Then there was a message from God; the land he slept on was going to be his. Jacob recognized the importance of the dream (who wouldn’t?), so when he woke up the next morning, he did what any person on the run from a murderous brother would do…he took the very same stone he had laid his head on, and set it up as a memorial, calling this plot of land Bethel (house of God). Don’t miss the significance of this –
God – the holy, the perfect, the all-knowing, the mighty, the ever-lasting, meets Jacob – the terrible twin, the shameful son, the characterless coward.
Now God, being who God is, begins to refashion Jacob. The process will take more than 20 years, but the dad deceiver and con artist on the lam, will eventually become a nation’s father, one chosen by God. Jacob, the supplanter becomes Israel, the God wrestler.
Let me bring this to a close. Here, in this place, Jacob consecrated it by pouring oil over the stone and establishing Bethel as the first step in his redemptive story. As he prepares to leave, Jacob makes a vow with God that most of us have said or at least thought. It went something like this: If you save me, and give me what I want, you will be my God. We might say it this way – God, if you get me out of this mess that I am in, I will follow you.
For Jacob, this won’t be his last visit to this stone. He will see it again. And…cliffhanger alert…you won’t believe what he does just before his return.
Faith, Leadership, and History 