But now, let's get blogging! And I'm a little bit excited about it this time because (for once!) I actually have an idea of what to blog about today, and it has nothing to do with gospel principles on which I need to improve. It's a story about a vision that I had always been vaguely curious about, plus a few possible interpretations with an encouraging, over-arching theme. It's all positive, and it's going to be fun. Let's talk about Jacob's Ladder.
I first heard the phrase "Jacob's Ladder" when I was very young, about 8 maybe, when I was amused by a wooden toy whose mechanics still baffle me today, despite how simple it looks. The toy was, of course, named after a vision Jacob had... about a ladder. And that's really all I knew about it until yesterday at institute we were reading in Genesis about Jacob, brother of Esau. I'm not sure how I didn't realize that it was the same Jacob. I guess I assumed that it was a fairly common name then. It certainly is now!
Anyway, about the vision:
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
Genesis 28: 12-13
My first thought was that the vision was a parable of life and death. Spirits come down the ladder out of heaven to be born, and climb back up the ladder when they die. The Lord, standing above the ladder, could have symbolized God's control over death, in that He choses who goes down the ladder when, and when people come back up. It seemed pretty straightforward to me at the time, but if there's one thing I know about parables, there's never only one meaning.
Another thought was that the ladder could have represented spiritual development. As we take the steps to become more like God and Jesus, we are, in a sense, climbing the ladder. And at the top of the ladder, we may reach heaven, the place where the Lord is. That part sounds great, but if climbing the ladder means making spiritual progress, what does that mean for the angels climbing down the ladder? The consensus of the class was that the ladder wasn't a measuring stick, showing us how much like (or unlike) Heavenly Father we are. If that were the case, it would put the descending angels in a pretty bad spot.
The teacher of the class thought it was important to point out the spacing in the phrase, "a ladder set up on the earth." The ladder wasn't "set upon the earth," as in being created in heaven, then lowered down here. It was "set up on the earth." This implies that the ladder was built here. But wait, wasn't there another group of people who tried to build a sort of "ladder" to climb up into heaven? There were no angels ascending or descending the Tower of Babel, as far as I know.
So, if the ladder represents something that was set up on the earth, and it wasn't the Towel of Babel, what was it? Our teacher suggested that it might represent the church. It was "set up" on the earth in the 1800's, and if we let the ascending part of the ladder represent spiritual progression, that part certainly works, too. A lot of people have ascended into heaven through their involvement in the church (both spiritually and mortally (martyrs)), but what about the descending angels? Our teacher had an answer for that, too. There were many angels sent down from heaven to help establish the church. The Angel Moroni stands out pretty strongly, not to mention John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John, just to list the first five angels that came to mind. There were many others whose visitation was referred to in the Doctrine and Covenants, so that part of the analogy checks out. Plus, even if the ladder doesn't/can't represent spiritual development, the "ascending" part of the ladder still works, since the angels that came down to help restore the church didn't stay down here for long. They always ascended right back up into heaven where they came from when their job was done.
On the other hand, if the descending part of the ladder could represent angels coming down temporarily to help us, then the ladder could represent our spiritual development, while including the encouraging message that we don't have to do it alone. We can have help sent down from heaven to uplift us, and maybe, just maybe, when we get up there, we might be sent back down to help someone else, completing the cycle. It's a beautiful image, when you look at it that way.
So, wether Jacob's Ladder represents death and life, spiritual progress and ministering angels, or the restoration of the church, there's one thought that comes to my mind in all these cases, and seems to me to be the over-arching theme of this vision: Heaven is close. And even if it's not physically close, it's close enough to be connected by the ladder. People climb up; people climb down. Heaven and Earth are not entirely cut off from each other. Whether it's through spiritual development or physical death, it's comforting to know that we can climb our way back into heaven. And whether it's a visitation of angels, or the creation of new life, it's a wonderful thing to know that God sends His choice spirits down to us, and they bring a little bit of heaven with them.
Though the vision of Jacob's ladder could be interpreted different ways, all the ways that I've thought of interpreting it are encouraging and inspiring. It's a revelation that you don't have to fully understand to know that it means something good. I'm glad I learned about it. And now I hope you are, too.
1 comment:
I am. Thank you.
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