The Winter can start to feel long right after the excitement and activity of Christmas is over. Other than watching for a snow storm, there is not a lot to look forward to this time of the year, not a lot to watch for. And if you are watching for Spring, there is a long way to go before any sign of better weather. Yet fortunately with God’s kingdom, there is always a lot to watch for, no matter the season.
In our gospel lesson from John chapter 1, the account of Jesus calling of Phillip and Nathanael, Jesus tells them exactly what to watch for. By extension Jesus is also telling us what we are to watch for in our lives as Christians.
This Sunday in particular our worship contains themes of the mysteries of God’s kingdom revealed. First in our Old Testament reading the Lord calls Samuel by his name, and Samuel does not recognize it is the Lord calling him. He thinks it is Eli. He was not expecting or listening for the voice of the LORD. Only after getting sufficient knowledge from Eli and through his faith and trust in the LORD could Samuel finally knows to respond: “Speak Lord, Your servant listens”
And in our gospel lesson Jesus reveals to Nathanael that he saw him under the fig tree. And Nathanael goes from the skepticism of thinking nothing good can come from Nazareth to a confession that Jesus is the Son of God. And then Jesus promises him an even greater mystery waiting to be revealed: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Sometimes the body language and facial expressions seen in church can give the impression that worship, like our everyday life, is at times boring. It would seem we are not always seeing the big picture. It makes you wonder if we are missing the full scope of what is going on in worship and missing the mysteries that are being revealed in our midst.
Perhaps we struggle to perceive how God reveals himself to us in worship. We struggle to recall the promise Jesus made to Nathanael: “Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man?” What does it take to see what God is doing among us in worship?
Our church does not have a special effects department- sound, lighting and video. We believe what our forefathers believed, that worship is not entertainment. In fact we understand that what the Lord gives us in worship is far greater than even the best executed forms of entertainment. In worship we do not need the best man has to offer in order to know the mysteries of God. Instead we are given what God has to offer. In our worship God serves us, God comes to us in the person of his Only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus promises to Nathanael that he will show him heaven opened, and Jesus shows this to us as well- as long as we have faith to see. The background for understanding heaven opened is in Genesis chapter 28
Jacob is on a journey from Beersheeba to Haran, sent by his family to find a wife for himself of their people. That night as he is dreaming the LORD appeared to him with a vision of a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven. Jacob saw a ladder bridging the gap between heaven and earth.
How amazing that there could be something like a ladder that could bridge the divide that which was broken since the Fall into sin! This is such a different picture than the cherubim and flaming sword set up to bar Adam and Eve from returning to the garden of Eden.
The scripture in Genesis chapter 28 records: “And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!” This ladder was bringing the messengers of God’s kingdom, the angels up and down. What a change was present in this dream in relation to our standing before God. What could this ladder possibly represent?
It was not a thing that the ladder represented, but a person. A God and a man, Jesus the Christ. The ladder had to do with the promise made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, a promise that the LORD would be with them and their descendants and would make them great. The LORD would make them the fathers of a holy people set apart for the LORD.
Nathanael was impressed that Jesus knew his name and saw him under the tree. But Jesus was only just beginning, any prophet can see extra things and know extra things as revealed by the LORD. But only the Son of God can pay for the sins of the world and bridge the chasm between heaven and earth by his death and resurrection.
And Jesus is the only ladder that connects us to the Father. Many in the world want to believe that their own efforts and diligent life disciplines connect them to God. People believe in countless gods of their own making and believe that these gods will give them all things desirable.
Yet the scripture is clear that Jesus alone is the Way the Truth and the life and that no one comes to know the Father except through Him. Jesus is, as 1 Timothy declares, the only ladder that connects us to the Father: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”
This is wonderful news for us. This means that we are not tasked with the mandate to earn our way up to God. This means that our role in life is to be as a beggars who receive gifts and provision from the Lord day by day.
Like Nathanael we do not always see the full meaning of who Jesus is for us, of what it means to us that through the cross the gates of heaven are opened to us. According to our sinful human nature, we like immediate results. We would find it easier to see heaven opened in the form of a company of radiant angels surrounded by a big flourish of colors and sounds that would amaze us and bring us sure knowledge of the Lord’s grace and mercy to us.
But instead, we see the gates of heaven opened through the ordinary activities of hearing God’s Word and receiving His gifts to us in worship, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and the preaching of forgiveness in Christ. Just ordinary church activities most of us have seen since we were children.
But they are not ordinary at all. These things we encounter in worship have the power to change our lives. Heaven is opened to us in worship because Jesus rose from the dead as the first fruits of our resurrection. Heaven is opened to us because Jesus commissioned the disciples that “All authority on heaven and earth is given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”
Every time we hear God’s Word we are participating in the putting away of our old sinful nature and the welcoming of new life in Christ. The ordinary activities of our faith bring an exceptional life marked by peace that the world cannot give. A life of purpose and joy.
Jesus knows us inside and out and sees far more potential in our lives than we ourselves can. “O LORD you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold O LORD you know it all together.” That is the psalm appointed for today. A psalm that helps us to see that our own bodies have been fearfully and wonderfully made. Our own bodies are made for the Lord.
And as our Epistle reading from 1 Corinthians emphasizes our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Whether it is issues of sexual purity or other ways we need to be careful in respecting our bodies- the message is the same, our bodies belong to the Lord, and it is through our bodies that we serve in God’s kingdom.
Often people in our culture today talk about spiritual matters in a way in which our bodies are inconvenient vessels to our soul that get in the way of our enjoying a certain communion with God. If we do not value our bodies we are losing sight of the fact that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but also true man. Jesus connects heaven and earth because he is both man and God.
Jesus connects us with heaven through Water and the Word. The ordinary activities for our bodies of hearing God’s Word and eating and drinking the Lord’s Supper, is actually the way that we see heaven opened to us. In seeing our Savior crucified for us and risen from the dead, we know we are beholding something more amazing than any of the disciples first saw in Jesus.
And as the gates are open, we are united with a God who transcends all of the difficulties of today and tomorrow. A God who will one day return to us in glory so that all things in heaven and earth will be united forever in the joys of eternal life. May we watch for this day always in anticipation and in hope. Amen.