This Sunday’s Old Testament reading told the story of Jacob’s flight from his brother Esau (Genesis 28:10-19a). When the sun set, Jacob found a comfortable rock and went to sleep for the night. While sleeping, he had a dream.

In the dream, he saw a ladder ascending into the heavens. God was seated at the top of the ladder and angels were traveling up and down the ladder. God spoke to Jacob and promised him the land on which he was sleeping. God also promised that Jacob’s “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; v14) basically everywhere.

Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and that’s the rest of the story.

But what does “Jacob’s Ladder” symbolize? There are several interpretations of the vision.  These range from the coming and goings of the angels as representing the Jewish peoples’ various exiles to the thought that Jacob, as a holy man, would always be accompanied by angels who come and go to heaven.   These are a couple of views put forth by Jewish philosophers.  

Christianity places Jesus Christ in the role of unifier acting as the bridge for man between heaven and earth. The ladder represents the climb toward heaven that we can now take because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The metaphor of the ladder as the bridge to heaven is often used in Christian philosophy and is beyond the scope of what I want to write about today.

I learned the song “I Am Climbing Jacob’s Ladder”, not in church or Sunday school, but in 4-H camp around a campfire. The gentle rhythm of the music and the repetitive verses made it a perfect song for a summer evening. It still finds its way into my musical memory.

However, I was surprised to learn that the origins of the song may date back as far as 1750. It is an African American slave spiritual, one of many developed to relieve the boredom of work, since slaves were prohibited from speaking to each other while laboring in the fields but allowed to sing or chant.

The song holds the concept of Christ as the central figure in our spiritual journey to heaven. The ladder acts as the means by which we climb to God. The form of the music is a call and response. One person starts the lyrics and others answer. In each verse, a challenge is issued; finally, a question is asked, “If you love Him, why not serve Him? Soldiers of the cross.”

“The striving nature of this “climb” toward God is depicted as a series of tests, and draws heavily on the New Testament tradition of the Christian as warrior—in this case, overcoming the slave-owner.^[6] The traditional lyrics hold out hope that the slave can rise up and escape slavery, and the nature of the call-and-response asks both the singing respondents and the listener for greater sacrifice to reach the next level.^[7] The spiritual implies that God’s promise to the Biblical patriarch Jacob will also lead the slave to freedom.

 The song became one of the first African American spirituals to become popular among white Christians.”

(We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

So, much more than a campfire song sung by children to relieve their boredom. A song of challenge and love, of sacrifice and hope-a song of love-the unconditional love that God has always had for His children from the beginning of time.

 Terri