Hymn of the Week, A Lenten Devotional: February 20, 2023
We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
Soldiers of the cross.
Ev'ry round goes higher, higher,
Ev'ry round goes higher, higher,
Ev'ry round goes higher, higher,
Soldiers of the cross.
Sinner, do you love my Jesus?
Sinner, do you love my Jesus?
Sinner, do you love my Jesus?
Soldiers of the cross.
If you love Him, why not serve Him?
If you love Him, why not serve Him?
If you love Him, why not serve Him?
Soldiers of the cross.
Rise, shine, give God glory,
Rise, shine, give God glory,
Rise, shine, give God glory,
Soldiers of the cross
Hymn Texts: A Lenten Devotional
The next several week’s devotions come to us from a book that takes us on a Lenten journey, using hymns of our faith. Each day of Lent is represented with a beloved hymn in the book. I will be sharing music and approximately 6 of the many devotionals available in the book.
The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns. Published by Upper Room Books 2021. The book can be found here: The Upper Room
Every Rung Climbs Higher
Another moment in the Bible’s narrative that may expose what Lent is about, a moment when earth morphed into heaven, was Jacob’s dream of a ladder (see Genesis 28), a text we cannot read with hearing a certain tune. It’s hard to think of a hymn whose rhythm and melody embody what’s envisioned in the hymn (and the Bible story) quite like “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.”
Even when reading silently we pause after “are” and “climbing,” as if grasping a rung and pulling, then pausing before the next rung. “every rung climbs higher, higher.” Singing it requires some patience. The pace is slow but certain. No wonder people enslaved on plantations, dreaming of going up and over and out of there, loved this song.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote, “Prayer is a ladder stretching from earth to heaven. On this ladder of words, thoughts and emotions, we gradually leave earth’s gravitational field. We move from the world around us, perceived by the senses, to an awareness of that which lies beyond the world.” The days of Lent might be marked as one rung after another on this ladder.
Stephen Covey said you can spend your life climbing the ladder of success “only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.” Or there’s poor Sisyphus who pushed that rock uphill, only to have it roll back down just before arriving at the summit.
Jacob
had been a ladder climber, doing whatever it took to get ahead: cheating his brother, deceiving his father, whatever. But in Genesis 28, he comes to “a certain place,” no place really. He’s as weary as Sisyphus and must rest. He has nothing but a rock for a pillow, although the Hebrew may imply that he put it next to his head for protection. There is no rest for the fearful weary. In a fitful sleep he has a dream Freud might analyze, a vision we might covet: a ladder bridging the great chasm between earth and heaven. The Hebrew really means it’s a long, steep ramp, the kind archaeologists have uncovered on the sides of ziggurats in Iraq.
Angels – not the sweet, kind we know from jewelry and little ceramic statues but mighty heavenly warriors and messengers – are going up and down the ramp. What could it mean? Jacob snaps out of his sleep or reverie. Dumbfounded, all he can say is “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it.” (Genesis 28:16).
I wrote an entire book about of recollections from my childhood, youth, and adulthood about times and places when God was present but undetected by me; only in retrospect could I see that God had been in a moment, a person, a circumstance.
God was there. I not only didn’t know it; I wasn’t seeking it. I wasn’t praying. Jacob isn’t on some spiritual quest. He’s not observing Lent. He’s on the run from . . .his brother? His past? His demons? You don’t have to be a spiritual climber to sing “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” It’s as if we’re groping in the dark for something but don’t know what. And it turns out to be the way to God – or God’s way to us. Jacob, after all, doesn’t even try to climb on the ladder. He’s awestruck and then goes on his way to a new job, a couple of wives, children who squabble, and a lot of heartbreak. God was in those places too.
Jacob was “a border crosser, a man of luminal experiences,” as Robert Alter puts it. We can find God – although it really is always that God is finding us – even in our restless forgetting to pray. Jacob wasn’t praying, but maybe unwittingly his prayer was his brokenness, his weariness, his fitful sigh.
Standing under a fig tree, Jesus mysteriously told Nathanael, “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John 1:51). St. Catherine of Siena thought of Jesus’ crucified body as that ladder on which we climb toward God. The first rung is the nailed feet. We humble shed our selfish will. The next rung is his open pierced side: We press in to glimpse the abyss of divine love. Finally, we scale to his face: We are moved by love to obedient holiness.
Who’s doing this climbing? “Soldiers of the cross.” Of course the soldiers at Jesus’ cross were the ones who nailed him to it, the ones snickering, the ones gambling over his clothing. And they were the ones he forgave, even though they didn’t repent or ask for mercy.
Something to Consider…
When we ponder the way God showed up to Jacob in his anxious flight from God and goodness and the way of Jesus, our ladder to heaven, forgave the unrepentant soldiers of the cross, we know the only answer to the hymn’s other questions: “Sinner, do you love my Jesus?” and “if you love him, why not serve him? “
Sources
Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewsih Bible, vol. 1, Genesis: The Book of Beginnings (New Milford, CT: Maggid Books, 2009), 88-89.
Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988) 98.
James C. Howell, Struck from Behind: My Memories of God (Eugene Or: Cascade Books 2012).
Robert Alter, Genesis, Translation and Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996) 149.
