Discovered the place where Jacob fell asleep and saw the ladder sending to heaven
by Steve Ray on January 6, 2014
Bethel Israel
It was off the beaten track and in a Jewish settlement in the Palestinian area. This is the traditional place where Jacob fell asleep with his head on a stone and had a dream of a ladder going to heaven with angels ascending and descending.
St. Chromatius wrote, “The Ladder is the Cross of Christ: Through the resurrection of Christ the way was opened. Therefore with good reason the patriarch Jacob relates that he had seen in that place a ladder whose end reached heaven and that the Lord leaned on it.
Very awesome to stand on the very place this happened!
“The ladder fixed to the ground and reaching heaven is the cross of Christ, through which the access to heaven is granted to us, because it actually leads us to heaven. On this ladder different steps of virtue are set, through which we rise toward heaven: faith, justice, chastity, holiness, patience, piety and all the other virtues are the steps of this ladder.
If we faithfully climb them, we will undoubtedly reach heaven. And therefore we know well that the ladder is the symbol of the cross of Christ. As, in fact, the steps are set between two uprights, so the cross of Christ is placed between the two Testaments and keeps in itself the steps of the heavenly precepts, through which we climb to heaven.” Sermon 1.6.
Jesus is the one mediator of the New Covenant – to provide access for sinful men to reach a holy God. He and His Cross are the ladder between heaven and earth. As Scripture says, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. (1 Tim 2:5). (By the way, this verse has nothing to do with the Communion of Saints or asking for the intercession of the saints!)