"Wrestling with God "     Genesis 32        October 21, 2007

It was time for Jacob to go home. When we meet him in Genesis, the 32nd chapter, we read that he is on the road preparing to meet his brother, Esau. It's been almost 20 years, and now Jacob knows he has to face Esau. A messenger told to Jacob, "We went to your brother Esau; he's coming to meet you, and he's bringing 400 men with him."

He knew you don't need 400 men in order to have a friendly family reunion. Jacob assumed that his brother was angry with him, and was coming to settle the score. Since they were born as twins, Esau was always bigger and stronger. He tried to figure out how to handle the situation. If there was a war between the two, Esau would probably win. So Jacob decided to divide his family into two groups. He figures that if Esau comes and attacks one half of his family, maybe the other will be safe.

As we often do when we're in times anxiety and distress, Jacob cries out to God and prays. Now Jacob never had an exemplary prayer life. As a young man, he tried to bargain with God in his prayers. But this prayer is different and much more meaningful. Listen to Jacob's prayer:

"Oh God of my father, Abraham, God of my father Isaac, oh Lord who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,' I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness that you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two great companies. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and the mothers and the children. But you have said, 'I will make you prosper, and make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'"

So now its time to sleep and he's done everything he knows to do. He's made his preparations. He’s sent his family to the other side of the river, and he’s all alone. Our reading tells us that night a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

There are two things I notice about this wrestling match with this mystery man. First, it was night, a long night. As he wrestles, the man sees that he cannot overpower Jacob, and he touches the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip is wrenched. Second, Jacob discovers that the person he is really wrestling with is God. And the man says, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replies, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

Jacob was already blessed with many things. He had two wives, and loved one of them, Rachel, very much. He had twelve sons and at least a few daughters. Along the way, he managed to trick his uncle Laban out of considerable wealth. (One could argue that Laban deserved it since he had pulled a fast one on Jacob.) Now it’s night, and Jacob was wrestling with God who was with him. What is it that Jacob wanted more than anything else in life?

I think he wanted what I want, what we all want more than anything else in life. Sometimes we don't even know how to say what we really want. But the word for Jacob was the word "blessing". I want to know the smile, the favor of God on my whole being. I would like my life to pleasing to God one who made me and gave me birth. I want to know that my life has purpose and significance that honors the God that has called me and made promises to me. What I want is what Jacob wants. Jacob called it God’s blessing.

That is all he ever wanted, but the way he tried to get was all wrong. He's tried to win it with competitiveness, with craftiness, and with deceit. But these things haven’t brought God’s blessing. These things spoiled his relationship with his father and his brother. Now he’s fleeing for his life with a broken family with the prospect of war with Esau he knows he will lose. And so he wrestles and he struggles with God in the night.

Have you ever wrestled with the bedclothes? How many times, in the dark places, has the night seemed so long as we waited for tomorrow, when we didn't know what tomorrow would have in it? In illness and uncertainty, about a job or about a member of our family or about something that we were worried about, the night can seem endlessly, endlessly long. It's night, and Jacob is alone.

I get the impression that maybe this was the first time he'd been alone and quiet in a busy life full of trying to achieve success. Finally, in the silence and in solitude, Jacob comes face to face with his fears and face to face with God. He asks for the one thing he wants more than anything else from God with whom he wrestles, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

And then comes a moment of truth. The man says to him, "What is your name?" Easy to answer, isn't it? Not for Jacob. Jacob recalls that he has lied about his name when he pulled the wool over his blind father’s eyes. He remembers when his father Isaac had said, "What is your name? Who are you?" In order to steal Esau’s blessing, Jacob said, "I am Esau."

Back then, he pretended to be someone else in order to get what he wanted. Now he wants God to bless his life. Again this time, the man asks, "Tell me your name; what is it?" And Jacob answers, "Jacob." In the darkness fo that long night of wrestling, finally Jacobs owns up to who he is before God.

The man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel," and in this renaming, Jacob is known to God in a new way. In the naming God was making a new covenant with an old friend. Jacob learns that in spite of his weakness, his failures, even with that sorry track record, God’s not finished with him yet. God works with people like Jacob, like me, like you, and God gives them a new name. As children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we all bear that name, Israel. Israel in the Hebrew means, "The one who has striven with God."

Then Jacob asks the man, "Please, tell me your name." Why? Why did he ask that question? The man replies, "Why do you ask my name? You know who you've been wrestling with. You've not really been wrestling with your brother; you've been wrestling with me, and my good purpose for your life." So Jacob called the place Peniel, and he said, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

There was one other thing that happened during that long night of wrestling. Jacob got his blessing, but Jacob had been wounded in the wrestling. So Jacob now bears the mark of that struggle; as he takes the new promise and the new hope into the future; as he discovers that God has prepared the way for him. As he finds out that Esau has forgiven him and meets him with peace and forgiveness, the door is opened into a reconciled life with a new beginning in his life. And his wounded hip and new limp are the marks of this new life.

Have you ever met someone who found new life after being wounded? I met a man who was wounded once. He had a heart attack and he came very close to dying. He spent many nights in the hospital CVICU unit. We were talking about the story of Jacob and Jacob's struggle. He said, "I know that struggle, because in my dark night I found myself wrestling and wondering, 'Is the promise on new life Jesus gave us really true? Does God still have a purpose for me?'

He said in the days that followed he knew that in the core of his being, he had an encounter with God. In that long night, something had changed in me. I realized that all my life I'd been wounding other people. I'd been competitive, I'd wanted to succeed, and so in doing that, I'd wounded my wife, my children, my friends. After that long night, I wanted to make some fundamental changes in my life. My wound helped me to understand what Jesus did at the cross when he was mortally wounded for us. Now I wanted a wounded healer like him."

That is Jacob's message to us. What becomes of our struggles? Whether it's with sickness or broken relationships, or tough circumstances in a hurting and suffering world. In our struggle, we can realize that God knows our name, and wrestles with us. As we wrestle with our doubts and our fears, we discover that God blesses us with the name given at our baptism and give us the promise of a good future, a promise of hope - a blessing.

As we enter into that promise we discover that we are those who know what it is to follow a wounded savior, Jesus Christ, who died for us, bearing our wounds that we might live abundant life and eternal life, and follow Him into the world with joy and hope, as wounded healers. Let it be so with us. Amen.