Friday • 2/11/2022
Friday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Genesis 27:46-28:4,10-22; Romans 13:1-14; John 8:33-47

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

Genesis: “Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin!” The Bible’s story is one long proof of this line from Julia H. Johnston’s (b. 1910) hymn. Today’s account of “Jacob’s Ladder” is case in point. 

If anybody ever needed grace, it was Jacob, the “Supplanter.” This second son had been prophesied to be the inheritor of his father Isaac’s estate, and the one through whom God’s promises to his grandfather Abraham would be fulfilled. Nonetheless, rather than trusting God to fulfill the prophecy and secure his inheritance, Jacob had conspired once to swindle his brother, and a second time to dupe his father. 

As today’s narrative picks up, Jacob is fleeing from his vengeful brother. At his mother’s urging, he is on his way to his uncle Laban’s home to seek refuge and simultaneously a wife. “He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set” (Genesis 28:11). In matter-of-fact fashion, Jacob takes a stone for a pillow, lies down, and goes to sleep. No Evening Prayer, no Compline, no “Now I lay me down to sleep.” He just lays down a weary head.

Unsolicited, Yahweh comes to him in a dream. A stairway to heaven opens and Jacob sees angels traveling back and forth between heaven and earth. It’s not a means by which merit and effort and pride climb up. Later, Jacob calls it “the gate of heaven.” It’s the gateway through which grace condescends to come down. “Grace, grace, God’s grace….” 

With not a single word of rebuke, Yahweh pronounces over this wayward sinner the same promises he had given faithful Abraham: “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:13b–15). Magisterially, Yahweh promises land, offspring, expansiveness, and presence. 

The good news is that for God to come to us, he doesn’t necessarily need us to be looking for him. He emphatically doesn’t need us to be good enough! “…Grace that is greater than all my sins!” 

John: whose child will we be? At some point, grace’s approach demands a receptive response. Jacob’s response takes time, but it does come. Eventually Jacob embraces Yahweh’s overture of love, and welcomes his role in his family’s unfolding mission to bless the nations. Sadly, not everyone in Jacob’s line does the same. (Well, they think they do, but they don’t.) That goes for too many of Jesus’s contemporaries, especially those who have risen to positions of spiritual authority. Abraham was promised “a seed,” a singular child (Genesis 12:7), through whom all the promises of land, of offspring, of expansiveness, and of God’s presence would come to fruition. That “seed” proved to be Jesus of Nazareth, but “He came unto his own,” John says, “and his own received him not” (John 1:11 KJV). To those who would not receive him Jesus utters the most chilling thing he ever says to anyone: 

“If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does” (John 8:39b–40).

The stakes are high. Recognize the grace that is offered in Jesus. When it comes to us, whether we’ve been seeking it or not, decide to receive or spurn it. Embrace it (that is, embrace Jesus) and know what it is to be welcomed into God’s family. Rebuff it (or, him), and wake up one day staring into the most dreadful of faces, and bearing the most damning of family resemblances. 

A Prayer of Self-Dedication. Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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