Wrestling With God

“Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”  Genesis 32:24

 This is one of the Bible’s most mysterious stories. This story only adds to an already tangled tail about Jacob, and to understand this story we must see it in the context of the larger story about Jacob. The name “Jacob” means “heel-grabber” or “trickster.”  Jacob lived up to his name very well.

Jacob had an older twin brother Esau, older, that is, only by minutes since Esau was born first with Jacob clutching his brother’s heel.  But the minutes might as well have been years for their birth order meant everything.  Being the older son meant Esau would eventually become the head of the family and receive the coveted blessing from his father Isaac. Being born first meant that Esau was the automatic “winner,” and Jacob would forever be the perpetual “runner-up.”  But Jacob had other ideas and decided early that he simply would not settle for “runner-up,” and, he had a powerful ally, his mother! 

First, Jacob duped his rather dim-witted older twin brother Esau by making him pledge to trade his birthright as eldest son for a bowl of soup when famished from working in the field all hot day.

Next Jacob, with considerable help from his mother, tricked his father and cheated Esau out of the sacred paternal blessing. The paternal blessing was believed to convey power and sovereignty to the recipient, and it was a blessing that could only be given once and never be taken back. What rightly belonged to Esau, Jacob stole outright – without shame!

Jacob was intelligent, shrewd, ruthless, a cheat and a liar. His conscience didn't seem to suffer in the least. He slept all too well. One night he had a dream of a great ladder that stretched all the way to heaven; and there were angels ascending and descending on the ladder. God stood beside him, blessed him and told him that the awesome promises God had made to his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac were now his.  It was a divine pledge that scandalizes our moral sensibilities.   

For fear of Esau taking revenge, Jacob ran off to a place called Haran where he worked for his Uncle Laban, and he made Laban very rich through his intelligence and cunning. Everything Jacob touched turned to gold.

The years rolled by and Jacob began to yearn for home.  He thought that maybe by now Esau would have let bygones be bygones and receive him back. But just in case, Jacob sent some of his servants ahead of him into Canaan with a rather generous pay-off of livestock and other valuable resources that he figured might soften old Esau's hard heart and appease him for sure. True to form, Jacob was still exercising his cunning and shrewd strategy – manipulating his way through life.

So Jacob gathered his family, packed up the U-haul and headed for his homeland of Canaan. They got as far as the Jabbok River and camped-out for the night. He sent his family and servants to the other side of the river. Jacob planned to cross over in the morning. It was as if he was relishing the moment of his triumphant return and pausing to reflect on all he had accomplished and acquired through his intelligence, cunning and deceit – preparing for a grand entrance!

And then it happened!  Something most awesome and terrible!  While he was savoring his triumphs alone on the far shore of the river, out of the shadows of the night leaped an awesome and mysterious figure, and they began to wrestle in a mighty struggle. This stranger had enormous, almost superhuman strength, greater than anything Jacob had ever known or experienced before. Into the night this great struggle ensued - two great figures of dreadful strength contending with one another - Jacob and the mysterious stranger. Towards morning the impossible was happening, Jacob seemed to be actually winning! And then, in the blink of an eye, the tables turned and the stranger dislocated Jacob’s hip. Suddenly everything changed.  Writhing in pain Jacob was gripping the stranger harder than ever, but no longer was it a grip of victory, but now Jacob’s grip was of desperation - for Jacob, in the dim morning light had caught a glimpse of the face of his awesome adversary. He saw the one whom he had been fighting, not only throughout this long dreadful night, but the face of the one with whom he had been wrestling his entire life – in some unfathomable way he had caught a glimpse of the face of God.

It was at that moment, I believe, Jacob knew this was a fight he simply could not win with his sly and cunning; his lying, cheating and deception as he had won everything else in his life up until then. More than anything Jacob wanted what this stranger had to give, but it was not something that Jacob could take, or force his divine adversary to give him.   It was only something Jacob could receive as a gift, if his divine adversary chose to give it. Nevertheless Jacob held on in desperation, but no longer out of confidence of victory, but out of fear he would lose this something he had just now caught a glimpse of for the first time. He wanted the blessing of his awesome adversary.

Jacob was finally beginning to understand that the most important thing in all of life that he could ever have was not something he could take with strength, or seize with cunning; or lie and cheat his way into, but only something he could receive as a gift - the blessing and the love of another - which is something you and I can never earn; can never take; can never purchase; can never steal; can never deserve.  God renamed Jacob that fearful day – to “Israel”.  An appropriate name for sure, for it means “wrestles with God” - something Jacob had been doing his entire life.

Jacob had been living under the false illusion that all these years somehow he had seized God's blessing and love through his own cunning and resourcefulness; just like he had done with his father Isaac. But now he was beginning to see the real truth; that the blessing and love of God comes not because of who Jacob was, but because of who God is! The blessing and love of God always, always comes by GRACE.

Shortly after, Jacob did meet his estranged brother Esau. Only Jacob greeted Esau on his knees; Jacob on his knees mind you, not exactly a posture of strength or smug pride. He placed himself, perhaps for the first time in his life in a humble posture of honest vulnerability throwing himself at the mercy of another. And Esau had every right to withhold mercy, even more, to drop the hammer on Jacob's head for all those horrible things that Jacob had done against him, and yet the hammer didn't fall. Genesis 33:4 says, "But Esau ... embraced Jacob... and kissed him and they wept."

And then Esau gave back Jacob's pay-off appeasement saying, "Jacob, keep what you have for yourself."

But Jacob, in turn, gave it back again to Esau only this time not as a bribe or appeasement, but as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. Jacob gave it saying, "Brother, please accept my gift because God has dealt graciously with me."  Jacob had been transformed!

As a result of his experience on the banks of the Jabbok River where he wrestled with God, the next day Jacob rested in the forgiving arms of his brother.  You see, when Jacob wrestled with God it was not God’s goal to crush him, but rather to transform him!

We too, like Jacob, wrestle with God.  We too have our plans and schemes of self-indulgence and getting ahead. We too can delude ourselves into thinking that we deserve God’s blessings because of our efforts.  We too excuse ourselves of our selfishness and sins and think that God must surely excuse us as well.  That is, until we stand at the foot of our Lord’s cross and wrestle with that for awhile; wrestle with the terrible truth that it was precisely your sins and mine that nailed him there.  And when that reality hits us, we find that our hips and hearts are dislocated with grief, guilt and fear.  But yet, like Jacob, we look into his eyes and we see something – something that we so desperately want and need to be truly human, and we continue to hang on to him with all our strength in desperation, and we plead for his blessing, only this time not out of strength, but out of our desperate need and desire for what he has to give. 

And he gives it, not because of who we are, but because of who he is – and then we hear the saving blessing spoken to us, “This is my body, given for you; this is my blood shed for you.”  And then finally and completely, we can let go of our pretense.  And in letting go, we find our selves resting in the loving arms of our Savior.  Amen.