We have heard their stories often in the previous decade. \u00a0The fire fighters of New York City who streamed into the two towers of the World Trade Center to rescue the hundreds of people who were trapped in them. \u00a0The names are available on nondescript web pages: Joseph Agnello, Sean Hanley, Robert Parro, William Wren. \u00a0With many other rescue workers, they placed themselves in imminent danger\u2013impossible to estimate on the morning of September 11\u2013in order to fulfill their duties.<\/p>\n
It is the fire fighters who have recently gripped me. \u00a0I have only the images and recollections that anyone else does\u2013the Dateline specials, the hardcover books, the magazine stories. \u00a0I have never been trapped in a burning building, so I can\u2019t adequately piece together what it was like for the firemen to ascend towers that only minutes later would fall. \u00a0The image I do have is one clouded by soot and dust and fire. \u00a0On one side stream office workers desperate to cheat death. \u00a0On the other side go the firefighters. \u00a0They do not slow down. \u00a0They don\u2019t complain. \u00a0They keep climbing, climbing, climbing. \u00a0Up and in. \u00a0Higher toward the top, deeper into the nightmare.<\/p>\n
***********<\/p>\n
There is a passage in Genesis that speaks to another passage. \u00a0It\u2019s one of the only Bible texts that I can think of that includes a ladder. \u00a0So reads Genesis 28:10-14:<\/p>\n
Jacob left\u00a0Beersheba and went toward\u00a0Haran. \u00a0And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. \u00a0And he\u00a0dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder\u00a0set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold,\u00a0the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! \u00a0And behold,\u00a0the\u00a0Lord\u00a0stood above it\u00a0and said,\u00a0\u201cI am the\u00a0Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.\u00a0The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like\u00a0the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and\u00a0your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.<\/em><\/p>\n This passage, like many rough-and-ready Old Testament passages, does not offer us context for this vision. \u00a0The author doesn\u2019t give us a disquisition on dreams in the Ancient Near East and how this one relates. \u00a0Jacob receives this picture\u00a0ex nihilo<\/em>. \u00a0Like other patriarchal figures, he is expected to handle this mind-stretching reality, to update his plans and hopes accordingly. \u00a0The Lord has extended his covenantal promise through Jacob, and the ladder to heaven will be borne by his descendants as it was his forebears.<\/p>\n Jesus applies this text to himself in John 1:51, offering his nascent pack of followers the insight that they would \u201csee\u00a0heaven opened, and\u00a0the angels of God ascending and descending on\u00a0the Son of Man.\u201d\u00a0 Nathanael, who had just confessed, in words better than he knew, that Jesus was the Son of God, could not have immediately understood the significance of Christ\u2019s stunning declaration.\u00a0 The one who was greater than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was here.\u00a0 He would not simply bear the ladder.\u00a0 He was the ladder.<\/p>\n **********<\/p>\n One aspect of the passion narratives of the gospels that strikes me are the way in which they trudge toward the cross. \u00a0The buildup can be excruciating, if you know what\u2019s coming. \u00a0There are moments in the telling that make you want to cry out, \u201cPlease, please, hurry this up! \u00a0Why must this injustice be prolonged?\u201d \u00a0Our horror makes us desperate for the conclusion.<\/p>\n But Jesus did not stop trudging. \u00a0He kept going. \u00a0Bearing splintered wood on a back roaring with pain, he kept walking. \u00a0He did not stop. \u00a0He went up to Golgotha. \u00a0Head down, eyes narrowed, pain clouding his view, embracing the sureness of his fate, feeling the coldness of isolation, smelling the stench of crucifixion.\u00a0 As he went, he reflexively turned to prayer\u2014he did not need prompting like his brothers and sisters\u2014but he found nothing there, the sky had become a ceiling. \u00a0His creation had become a tomb, and it pressed in on him, and he felt the coffin walls at his sides, and he screamed! \u00a0But he was not heard.<\/p>\n Still he went further.\u00a0 Higher till he hung in the air, forsaken. \u00a0Higher than any man had ever gone before, higher than even the bravest soldier or firefighter or truth-teller would go.\u00a0 \u00a0He went in to the darkness. \u00a0Deeper he pressed into death, descending into the abyss. Deeper than his brothers could go, deeper into the belly of condemnation.<\/p>\n All the way.\u00a0 He went all the way.\u00a0 Up and in, climbing, climbing, climbing, until the earth was no more, and the flame of wrath extinguished. \u00a0And the cosmos was silent.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We have heard their stories often in the previous decade. \u00a0The fire fighters of New York City who streamed into the two towers of the World Trade Center to rescue the hundreds of people who were trapped in them. \u00a0The names are available on nondescript web pages: Joseph Agnello, Sean Hanley, Robert Parro, William Wren. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,306],"tags":[384,1283,1624,13176,2612],"class_list":["post-2962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-theology","category-spirituality","tag-384","tag-firefighters","tag-jacobs-ladder","tag-jesus-christ","tag-september-11"],"yoast_head":"\n