The Heavenly Ladder

When Jacob was sent away by his father “to take him a wife” from his kin in Haran, Jacob traveled alone to the place that he named Beth-el.  It was there that he had his experience with the divine and his vision of the ladder: “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.  And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed” (Genesis 28:12-13).  This seems to have been some kind of temple-like experience for Jacob as he was shown how to ascend to heaven.  This is evidenced by the fact that Jacob then “called the name of the place Beth-el” which literally means the House of God (Genesis 28:19).  Elder Marion G. Romney said of this experience, “When Jacob traveled from Beersheba toward Haran, he had a dream in which he saw himself on the earth at the foot of a ladder that reached to heaven where the Lord stood above it.  He beheld angels ascending and descending thereon, and Jacob realized that the covenants he made with the Lord there were the rungs on the ladder that he himself would have to climb in order to obtain the promised blessings—blessings that would entitle him to enter heaven and associate with the Lord….  Temples are to us all what Bethel was to Jacob” (see here). 

                What interests me is the fact that he had this experience on his way to Laban’s where he would eventually be married.  After Bethel he “went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east” where he was married to Laban’s daughters (Genesis 29:1).  To me it seems as if the Lord was telling him—or perhaps showing us—through the experience that the way to ascend that ladder must include a covenant marriage.  If those rungs on the ladder represented the covenants we make with the Lord in order to one day enter heaven as Elder Romney suggested, then surely one of the rungs must represent the covenant of marriage that takes place in the house of the Lord.   Some may not have the opportunity to marry in this life, but for those who make temple covenants marriage is always a given, not simply a possibility.  Those who keep the covenants of the temple will eventually be able to ascend the covenant step of eternal marriage on our ladder back to the Lord.  We start the climb up the ladder by ourselves as we make promises to the Lord in the temple, but we are to arrive at the top accompanied by someone else. 

                This scripture story is on my mind today because it is my own seven-year wedding anniversary with my good wife.  Jacob “served seven years for Rachel” before they were married, and “they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her” (Genesis 29:20).  For me these seven years have not seemed a few days but rather it seems as if I cannot remember life before it was with her and with our children.  Despite my own shortsightedness and frequent failure to focus on that which is most important, when I take time to sit back and ponder what we have created in these years I realize that my world is hers and theirs.  Whenever I spend a few days away on business I feel how lifeless life is without them.  When Adam named his wife Eve he did it because “she was the mother of all living”—he knew that the joy of his life would come through her and their children (Genesis 3:20).  He knew that her most divine role was to bring God’s children in the world and gave her a name to reflect that, and I give thanks to have my own daughter of Eve who has given up personal desires to fulfill that same God-given role!  I say with President Hinckley, “How thankful I am, how thankful we all must be, for the women in our lives.  God bless them.  May His great love distill upon them and crown them with luster and beauty, grace and faith” (see here).  How blessed I am that she has seen fit to bring me along her ascent up the heavenly ladder, and my hope is that she doesn’t have to wait too long for me to catch up with her.