Portal to Heaven? / That Must Have Been One Huge Tower!

Oct. 13

Read: Genesis 11:1-9

Portal to Heaven? / That Must Have Been One Huge Tower!

“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens…And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” (v. 11:4,6)

My dog loves to bark at any creature that walks up onto our porch or near our house. Every woodchuck, possum, raccoon or bear gets the same response from Lewis. (Our dog’s name is C.S. Lewis -LOL) He barks loudly with confidence at these creatures. I did watch him one day bravely charge a bear that was walking down our driveway. For a season we had a possum who was kind of mean and was hijacking the barn cat’s food. This cantankerous fellow would saunter up onto our deck and make a mess. Lewis would bark like crazy when he came up to the house. So I decided one night to let Lewis out of the house to go get that possum. In his normal fashion Lewis was barking and getting all fired up and I opened the door along with the strong command, “go get ‘em Lewis!” Our dog ran out after that possum and the chase was on to the bottom of the steps on our deck. To everyone’s surprise - including Lewis’ - our dog caught that possum by the scruff of its neck. In that moment, we looked at each other and then at Lewis … all of us thinking “NOW WHAT!?!” Lewis promptly dropped that possum and he scurried off into the night. I now know where the saying, “all bark and no bite” comes from.

When I think about the tower of Babel, I think about our dog and that possum. What do these people expect to do with this “tower that reaches to heaven”? If they are successful at getting there, what exactly do they hope to find? What is it that they are chasing after… trying to get a hold of? And most importantly, what exactly do they plan to do once they grab hold of it!?! I can’t help but think that they might end up just like Lewis and that possum… if they actually “catch” what they are chasing after I don’t think they would know what to do with it!

Drawing “near” to God is not a bad thing. Building something that brings us closer to where God is doesn’t seem evil or wrong. The crazy thing is that, in the ancient world, these towers / pyramids / or ziggurats where more about trying to get a deity / god to come down to earth than they were about the people going up to “heaven”. This makes sense with what these people said: “let’s make name for ourselves”. I think these people thought they could go up there and grab a hold of God and drag him down to their city and make him serve them… use him to “make a name for themselves”. (Worst case scenario, they might have even thought they could reach heaven and overthrow him!) The core question is, what are you trying to lay hold of, and what do you think you are going to do with it if you succeed? Maybe another angle is this: is it TRULY possible to connect with God / come in contact with God (it IS!) and if so, what do we expect to do with him once we get to that place? Do we think we will drag him down and make him serve us? Do we think we will tell him what to do? Or will we fall down and worship him?

There is one very crazy part of this story that just doesn’t sit well. Notice God’s response in verse 11:6. God doesn’t deny the plausibility of their tower reaching “heaven”. God DOESN’T say that the building project is “impossible”, or that “no one can reach heaven or get to us”. Quite the opposite. God seems to affirm the validity of the idea! Does this mean that you can actually stack enough bricks to get to heaven? I don’t think so. I would say NO. BUT, the answer might be that there ARE ways that our world and God’s world (“heaven” actually CAN come in contact with each other. This tower wouldn’t “reach heaven” in a spacial sense, but these places of worship / towers / pyramids / ziggurats actually do coincide with the opportunity to interact with the heavenly realms. This can be a very good thing… or a very evil thing depending on who you are seeking to connect with and what your goals are !

For us as Christians, I want our imaginations to be spurred on by this truth: that God is willing to connect with us as his people. It actually IS possible to “bridge the gap” between this world and the realms where God is / God’s presence. There is a connection that can and does take place. God’s own words show us that it is indeed possible for our places of worship (our proverbial “towers”) to connect to / “reach” the heavens… the very presence of God. God doesn’t scoff at the idea of the tower of Babel; but he does reject the motives and evil intentions of those who are building it! The question is not can we actually connect with God, but what are we going to do if we actually DO find ourselves face to face with the one we are chasing after!?! There are very real opportunities to enter God’s presence and reach out to him. This is yet another lesson from the tower of Babel. Love you guys. - JDP