Our stairway. Our gate. Our temple. Our God.

A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching the sky, and God’s angels were going up and down on it. The Lord was standing there beside him, saying, “I am the Lord”…

[Jacob] said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

He was afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.” (12-13, 16-17)

Think about this scene. Jacob, because of his sin, was on the run from his brother Esau.

And yet God reached down in his grace and revealed himself to him. Not only did he reveal himself to Jacob, he blessed him.

Around 2000 years after this event, another man named Nathanael stood in front of Jesus.

I believe that like Jacob, he was somewhat afraid because Jesus had revealed things about Nathanael that only God could have known.

Nathanael named him Messiah that day. But he didn’t yet realize that Jesus was much more.

Jesus told him,

You will see greater things than this…

Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.(John 1:50-51)

In the story of Jacob, the angels descended from heaven on the stairway. Here in John, Jesus says, “I am the stairway. But I am not telling you to come up to me. I have come down to you.”

More than that, Jesus is the new house of God, the new temple where God’s glory is revealed, and people can draw close to him because of his death on the cross (John 2:20, 12:32).

And now, he is the gate to heaven. If anyone enters by him, he will be saved. (John 10:9)

That’s the meaning of Christmas. Jesus is our stairway, our temple, our gate, and most importantly, our Lord and God.

And whether we know it or not, he is in this place.

He is Immanuel, God with us.

So together with Jacob and Nathanael, let us stand in awe in his presence.