Church of the Holy City

Rejoicing Comes in the Morning

Rejoicing Comes in the Morning
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
June 7, 2009

Genesis 28:10-22 John 21:1-14

The two Bible passages I selected for this morning both relate to morning. When Jacob awakes in the morning, He makes an altar and dedicates his life to Yahweh. And in the New Testament passage, Jesus appears to the disciples in the morning and shows them where to catch a huge amount of fish.
In Swedenborg’s correspondences, morning symbolizes God Himself. In the morning, the sun rises in the east. So the east also symbolizes God and God’s presence. In heaven, God appears to the angels always in the east. And in many Bible passages, God’s presence is in the east. When God separates the waters of the Red Sea, it is by an east wind. The altar of Solomon’s temple faces east. When the glory of the Lord fills the temple in Ezekiel, it comes from the east. This is the reason our Swedenborgian churches all have their altars in the east, as is the case with this church. Morning also symbolizes a state we experience in which our spiritual affections are keenly felt. So it is appropriate that in both these passages about morning, we have a direct experience of God’s presence. Jacob sees God at the top of the stairway ascending to heaven, and the Apostles see Jesus in the morning after a night of fishing.
There are three important aspects to both of these Bible readings. First, it is God who comes to the people in these stories—they don’t come to Him. In the Old Testament story, Jacob is on a journey and goes to sleep. He isn’t expecting anything special—it is an ordinary night and he goes to sleep at the day’s end. In the New Testament story, the Apostles are at work, fishing in the Sea of Tiberias, or as it is traditionally called, the Sea of Galilee. Second, God comes to these people in the midst of troubles. Things don’t look good when God comes to these people. And third, when God appears, abundance and prosperity result.
Let’s begin by looking at the story of Jacob. Jacob is on a journey when God comes to him. And Jacob is on that journey because his brother Esau is so mad at him that he plans to murder him. Acting on his mother Rebecca’s advice, Jacob travels to Haram to lay low until his brother cools off. So Jacob is fleeing for his life.
In the New Testament story, the Apostles aren’t having much luck with their work. They have been fishing all night and haven’t caught anything. They must have felt disappointed and, maybe, frustrated.
So in both these stories, things are going badly for the people in them. And in these spells of trouble, God comes and lifts up His people with His presence and abundance. Let’s go over the stories in a little more depth.
Jacob goes to sleep on his journey, and sees the vision of a stairway reaching up to heaven. Angels are ascending and descending on it. And at the top of the stairway, God Himself stands and speaks to Jacob. He promises Jacob that He will always be with him. “I am with you,” God tells him, “and will watch over you wherever you go” (28:15). Jacob’s response is very significant. He says, “Surely Yahweh is in this place and I was not aware of it” (28:16). In the midst of his anxieties, Jacob was not aware of God’s presence. He then realizes that this place is the gate to heaven and the house of God. So he builds an altar there, and names the place Bethel, which means “House of God.” He then makes a commitment to turn his life over to God. He says, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey . . . then Yahweh will be my God” (20, 21). And in God’s appearance to Jacob, God promises abundance and prosperity to Jacob. God tells him that, “I will give you and your descendents the land on which you are lying. Your descendents will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and the east, to the north and the south. All peoples of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring” (13-14).
In our New Testament passage, the events follow a similar outline. The Apostles have had a disappointing night. They fished all night and hadn’t caught anything. Then, through no effort of their own, Jesus appears to them in the morning. Like Jacob, they don’t realize that they are in the presence of God. The Bible tells us that, “the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus” (21:4). Jesus tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat and their nets are filled so full they couldn’t bring them into the boat. Then John realizes that it is Jesus who is talking to them. They have been given more than an abundant catch of fish with Jesus’ appearance, but there is more. There is a fire burning on the shore and they eat bread and fish in Jesus presence.
The main point I take from these stories is how elusive God’s presence with us can be. More often than not, I think we can identify with Jacob, when he said, “Surely God is in this place and I was not aware of it.” How often do we take time to raise our consciousness to God. We fret about our bills, we go to work, we go about our daily affairs, and more often than not, our minds are not on our inner states. Even if that morning state comes to us in which our spiritual affections are clearly perceived, would we take the time to notice?
But all the while this is going on, God still comes to us. While our minds are filled with the mater of fact things of our daily lives, God is with us. Even in times when we feel lost and abandoned; when things are not going our way; God is with us. God is with us as He was with Jacob, when he was fleeing for his life, and as He was with the Apostles after a disappointing night of fishing with nothing to show for it. And in coming to us, God gives us continually of His great abundance. God gives us the great catch of fish. God gives us descendants that reach from the east to the west and from the north to the south. Some church interpret these teachings about abundance to mean material wealth. They teach that God will give us lots of money. I’ve heard these preachers on TV and wondered how they can get away with it. I wondered about the people in their congregations who never do end up getting a lot of money, and why they keep coming back.
My way of reading God’s abundance is in spiritual terms. The abundance God gives us is clear truths, more and more truths that we learn along our journey in this world. If we are open to it, we will find our minds progressively more and more illuminated with clarity in the things that relate to spiritual life. We see into the workings of God’s Providence. We learn better how the world operates. We see more vividly our purpose in life. These truths lead us into ever deeply felt affection for one another and for God. Our feelings of union and communion with each other and with heaven grow ever more deep in our spirit. And a loving community, which is what God gives us, is wealth beyond measure. These things are the abundance that God’s presence brings to us.
Since this abundance is all internal, we may not see it happening. I was recently at a youth retreat in the US. There were Bible lessons that we on staff gave, and there was recreation time in between. We all ate our meals together. There was sharing and dialogue and talking about life. Without my knowing it, the whole camp opened up with a level of caring and mutual love between teens, between staff, and between teens and staff. Without my knowing it, I was lifted up into one of those God experiences that we heard about in the Bible readings this morning. I didn’t notice it at the time. I only noticed it when I had to deal with the world after the retreat ended. How harsh and grating everything felt. How callous and unfeeling the encounters I ran into after the retreat. Only by contrast could I realize that I had been lifted up into one of those morning states in which love, joy, and spiritual delight were keenly felt.
Hopefully, there are times and places when we do have that feeling that God is with us and will watch over us wherever we go, as He tells Jacob. Hopefully there are those times when we feel God’s presence and its corresponding delight and spiritual joy. Maybe we find it in church. Maybe we find it especially during Holy Communion, when we eat and drink in Jesus’ presence, as the disciples did that morning. Maybe we find it in prayer. Or maybe, as in the stories we heard this morning, it comes to us out of the blue, without our looking for it.
Abraham Maslow calls these experiences “peak experiences.” They can transform and reorder a person’s whole life. When we feel these peak experiences of God’s presence, we want to live in such a way that we open the door for them to recur. They become the holy center of everything we strive for in life. We, like Jacob, make a vow and a commitment that the God who has manifested Himself to us will be our God. And our lives will fulfill that commitment.
So I ask you this morning to open yourselves up to God, as we partake in Holy Communion. Let us recognize that communion is a feast in Jesus’ presence. And in this sacrament, God can truly appear and be present with us. And when we leave the church this morning, let us remain open to God. God is coming to us continually. He will appear in the midst of our work and ordinary life’s activities as He did to Jacob and to the disciples. And instead of saying, “Surely God is in this place and I was not aware of it,” maybe we will be as the disciples when they ate their morning meal in the presence of the Lord.