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There is a wonderful story about a city mayor. It happened that during one particular year, the mayor made trips to both Washington DC and to Israel. According to the story, while in Washington, the mayor visited the president in the oval office. During the visit, the mayor noticed three telephones on the president's desk and inquired about them.

"Well," said the president, "The black one is a regular telephone, the white one is for calls within the White House and the red one is a hotline to God."

"Gee," replied the mayor, "with all the problems my town is having, I could certainly use some advice from God. Could I possibly use that hotline for a few moments?"

The president was happy to oblige and left the mayor alone in the oval office to make his call. And so the mayor talked to God.

Afterward, he asked the president how much he owed for the call. The president called the White House operator and got the time and charges. The mayor immediately paid the charges, considering it money well spent.

Later that year, while in Israel, the mayor also had an audience with Israel's prime minister. He noticed that the prime minister had three telephones in his office as well, so he asked about them.

"Well," said the prime minister, "The black one is a regular telephone, the white one is for calls between government offices and the red one is a hotline to God."

Remembering how helpful his last conversation with God had been, the mayor asked for and received permission to use the prime minister's hotline for another call to the almighty.

After completing his call, the mayor asked the prime minister how much he owed for the call. The prime minister looked a bit surprised and then said, "You don't owe anything. Over here, phoning God is a direct call."

Ah, well, we all have times when we wish we could have our direct hotline to God. In fact, in a more serious vein, aren't there times of personal crises or of momentous decision when we sincerely wish to God that he would contact us and tell us what to do? At least it would be helpful if he told us what the consequences of each of our choices would be.

Jacob, who found it expedient to leave his father's house in a hurry after having defrauded his brother Esau, stopped one night to sleep in the wilderness. In his dream that night, he saw a ladder that reached from earth to heaven. Angels were traveling up and down this ladder and God himself was standing at the top of it. God spoke to Jacob and extended to him the covenant promises that he had already made with Jacob's father Isaac and with his grandfather Abraham.

When Jacob awoke, he realized that he had had an experience that is granted to only a very few. That ladder had been his own hotline to God.

It seems remarkable to us that God would choose to extend a vision to such an unsavory character as Jacob, but the point is, the only way such direct access to God can be had is if God himself offers it. There is nothing we mortals can do to establish this link.

There are some points where we can identify with Jacob's story. In the first place, Jacob was in exile from his home. Now we may not feel too much sympathy for him since his exile was the result of his own wrongdoing. Still, some of us know what it is like to be cut off from people we love or to know that some of our actions have troubled or even ended certain relationships.

We ought to note, however, that there is nothing in Jacob's demeanor as he camps out that night to suggest that he had a guilty conscience or desired to mend his ways. He may have been apprehensive for, as far as he knew, his brother could have been pursuing him. He was probably despondent. And since he wasn't at home, there was no chance of him actually receiving the inheritance he had won by treachery. Yet, he does not appear to be sorry for what he had done.

We may be able to identify with Jacob at this point, too. Have any of us ever said, "Well, what I did may have been wrong, but I am not about to apologize"? Or, "The church would not approve of what I did but I sure taught that nasty so-and-so a lesson"?

The remarkable thing about this whole account is the fact that God comes to Jacob in this dream without first demanding any kind of contrition on Jacob's part. God does not rebuke Jacob for his sin. On the contrary, God confirms to Jacob the inheritance that he thought he had lost, assures him of divine help and promises to be with him.

Yet even after this powerful dream, Jacob shows little evidence of conversion. In fact, demonstrating what a conniving rascal he still is, he responds to the dream with the following vow:

If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God....If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God....
-- Genesis 28:21-22 (emphasis added)-- Genesis 28:21-22 (emphasis added)


Nothing Jacob did made him deserving of a vision of God, but he needed that vision, and God gave it to him.

But that is a point for us, too. Even if we have never done anything as dastardly as Jacob did, none of us have been deserving of the grace of God, and yet God gives it to us anyway.

In John 1:43-51, which tells of Nathanael's call to be an apostle, Jesus tells Nathanael that he knew Nathanael had been sitting under the fig tree when he first heard about Jesus. That Jesus knew this astonished Nathanael, but Jesus then startled him even more. Jesus referred to the Old Testament story of Jacob's dream and then said to Nathanael, "... You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

In other words, Jesus was saying, "I can do more for you than read your heart. I can be for you and all people the ladder that leads to God."1

Here again is the affirmation that this direct link with God occurs only as God's gift to us, for surely Jesus was sent by God to lead us to the Father. Jesus is the ladder from our house to God. Jesus said as much when he stated, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

It is extremely hard for us to really feel the impact of those words, "I am the way." We who have been raised in the Christian faith have been taught for so long that God is accessible to us that we take it for granted.

But think for a moment what our lives would be like if we did not know the way to God. In the ages before Christ, more primitive people did not know the way to God. In Mesopotamia, those who practiced the Babylonian religion built multitiered towers for worship with ramps joining each tier. These ramps were intended by their builders to be stairs joining heaven and earth, a route by which their gods could descend to help them and receive their worship. These worshipers hoped that these ramps and structures would prove to be the way to their gods. Some of the other peoples did things like sacrifice their children in an attempt to reach their gods.

In our age, even though these old and sometimes barbaric practices have been abandoned, there are still plenty of people who don't know how to reach God. Although in one perspective, this doesn't seem to be a very religious age we live in, in another perspective it's a time when people are hungry to believe in that which is beyond themselves.

Some time ago, I attended a conference in Chicago. The speaker at one session was Lynn Garrett, the religious book editor at Publisher's Weekly, the "bible" of the book-publishing industry. She explained that there is an explosion of interest in religious and spiritual books, and that sales of such books are stronger currently than they have been for decades. "One Spirit," one of nine specialty clubs of the Book of the Month Club, is the fastest growing club in the company's history. And Ingram Books, the nation's largest book wholesaler, saw a nearly 250% growth in the religious book category starting in the mid-1990s.

Book sales are a sign of the religious hunger in America, but note that I said "religious and spiritual" books, not just Christian books. To be sure, sale of Christian books are on an upswing, but the "religious" books category includes New Age, Scientology, believe-in-yourself, and a host of other titles on spirituality that are far afield from Christianity. You see, many people are hungry to believe, to connect with that which is beyond themselves, but they don't know the way. As a result, people swallow all sorts of stuff -- everything from astrology to crystals to UFOs to Elvis sightings. People want to connect with a "higher power" but have no idea of how.

Then, too, even among those of us who have some inkling that Christ is the way, some of us perhaps don't grasp what that means. We may be relying on a record of good deeds to get God's attention and thus fail to realize that God may be reached through faith in Jesus.

There may also be some of us who feel we are too sinful or have done something too terrible for God to listen to us. We may think that we can't come to God until we've "cleaned up our act." We may not understand that God calls us to come just as we are, and that Jesus is the way.

How would you feel if, in the midst of a crisis, you could think of no way to reach God? Would you not feel even more abandoned and alone? But Jesus says to us, "I am the way. I'm the ladder from your house to the Father."

Jesus as the ladder does not mean that he provides instant answers to prayer, but he provides an instant audience with whom to share our burden, and he provides instant access to God. He is the ladder by which we ascend to God and the ladder by which God's love descends to us.

Perhaps the most helpful part of Jacob's story for us is the knowledge that Jacob's sinfulness did not stop God from communicating with him.

Some time ago, I read of a minister's son, named Chris, whose mother had died when he was seven. His father eventually remarried and although Chris' stepmother was good to him, the young boy was deeply hurt by the death of his mother. He felt as if he had been deserted. As a result, this boy avoided attachments with others for fear of being hurt again. Resentment and rebellion churned in him. He became difficult to live with and hard to understand. He was so impossible to deal with that he was expelled twice from school before he was in the seventh grade. He began drinking and using drugs while still in his teens.

At 23, despite the fact that he was still a very mixed-up person, Chris got married. A child was born in the first year and somehow Chris found a job as a policeman. He found the job nerve-racking. He had to deal with people at their worst: those who were drunk and threatening, those who stole, parents who beat their children, spouses who attacked one another, kids in crime and so forth.

All of this made him even harder in his spirit. He viewed compassion and tenderness and love as signs of weakness. He became a tough, cold-hearted man.

He drank a great deal, but the alcohol did not assuage the terrible turmoil in his inner man and he contemplated suicide. He could find no ladder out of the pit of despair he lived in.

Finally, he recalled that a minister who was a friend of his father's lived in a nearby city, and Chris called for an appointment. When there, he described in detail his inner agony. When he finished, the pastor said, "Chris, the only help that can do you any good must come from Jesus Christ." The minister was telling Chris that Jesus was the way, the ladder to God.

That was precisely what Chris did not want to hear. He left in anger and disgust.

But, apparently the pastor had planted a seed. A week later, Chris came across a book titled Authentic Christianity and felt compelled to buy it. He soon found himself engrossed in the book, and while reading, he began to cry. He fell on his knees and asked Jesus to come into his life.2

That's exactly what Jesus did, and that was the beginning of Chris' journey toward inner peace.

This man found that the ladder from God had been extended down into his home all along. Christ had been there throughout all the pain. The pastor and the book simply helped Chris to see the ladder, Jesus Christ. As Chris started to climb up, he found that God was already climbing down to meet him.

And that's what God does for each of us, too. He sets the ladder named Jesus Christ down into our lives and stands near the bottom rung, ready to hear our pleas and strengthen us, and help us to climb to God.

That is one of the treasures of our faith: Jesus is the ladder to God. Amen.


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1. William Barclay, John, Vol. 1, Daily Study Bible Series, p. 94.

2. Thanks to Dr. Charles Ferrell for this illustration.