JACOB'S ZIGGURAT

Jacobs Ladder, Cameron Park, Waco, TX

Jacob's Ladder: When I was growing up in Waco, Texas, my friends and I often played in Cameron Park. This was an 1100 acre area of winding roads, trees, forest, riverbanks, and trails, with limestone cliffs rising hundreds of feet above the flowing Brazos River. It had been granted to the city of Waco years before by the Cameron family, a wealthy landowner from the early days in central Texas. It was truly an amazing place to adventure as a kid. One of the roads meandered up from the river through the wooded areas until it arrived at the top of the cliffs at a place called "lover's leap," where young lovers had once,  according to legend, plunged to the lime rock of the river below.

In one of the cliffs set back from the bank, steps had been laid, climbing steep and vertical from the riverbed skyward to the cliff top, each step was quite a stretch, especially for a kid. Stripped wood branches ascended along each side of the rough stairwell, known to all as "Jacob's Ladder." I cannot begin to recall how many times I traversed Jacob's but every time the story of Jacob's Ladder came up in Sunday school my mind was always reminded of that limestone ladder.

Escalara a la Luna / Georgia Okeeffe  1958

 Jacobs Dream: During the late 1950's in America there was a lot of dreaming about traveling into space or having aliens visit us, at least in films of the day. We eventually made it to the moon. But in 1958 it was still a dream, much like Georgia O'Keeffe'a rendering of "Escalara a la Luna." I appreciate the ladder which lingers above the earth but below the moon. Not quite connected to either. A vision of what may or can be in our lives, in our world.

Traditionally as I have thought about Jacob's dream I have thought about it in its metaphorical connection to reality. There are angels ascending and descending, those messengers of God and his will. We have always attempted to build some sort of bridge between the temporal and the eternal, in art, song, poem, and even as seen in the architecture of the ancient Mesopotamian plains.

US 82nd Airborne descends Ziggurat at Ur in modern Iraq

 

Home of the god: Ziggurats (Akkadian ziqqurat, "to build on a raised area") were massive structures built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. Built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians, and Assyrians  for local religions, each ziggurat was part of a temple complex which included other buildings.

The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for public worship or ceremonies. They were believed to be dwelling places for the gods and each city had its own patron god. Only priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base, and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests were very powerful members of Sumerian society. The Mesopotamians believed that these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth. In fact, the ziggurat at Babylon was known as Etemenankia or "House of the Platform between Heaven and Earth". (Wikipedia)

In our lesson from the lectionary for today, we get a glimpse of heaven through the dream of Jacob at a place referred to as Luz. After his dream encounter, Jacob renames the place Bethel (place or house of God.) How does Jacob's encounter with the Holy change the relationship.between the patriarch and God in the context of his times? What does that mean for us today?

Genesis 28:10-19a
28:10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.

28:11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.

28:12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

28:13 And the LORD stood beside him and said, "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;

28:14 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.

28:15 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."

28:16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place--and I did not know it!"

28:17 And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

28:18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.

28:19a He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first.

Walter Morton for Journey Across the Line