Sermon: God at Work – Wrestling!
September 22nd, 2019 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Scripture passage: Genesis 32:22-30
O Love, that will not let me go! Whenever I have sung this hymn before, my image of Love (capitol ‘L’, as a name for God) has been that of a mother with arms holding me tight. “I rest my weary soul in Thee.” But singing this hymn right on the heels of hearing the story of Jacob wrestling in the night, I have a new image in my mind, the image of Love grappling and refusing to let go even when the opponent is struggling against it.
Jacob, the Grasper
Speaking of ‘right on the heels’: as I shared earlier, Jacob was named ‘heel’ because he was born grasping onto the heel of his twin brother. The name Jacob also means ‘he grasps’. That was the story of Jacob’s life – grasping, grappling, struggling. He kept grasping for the things he wanted, even if it meant being a heel and tricking others. Flipping back to Genesis 27, we learn that Jacob grasped for the inheritance that belonged to the first-born child, to his brother. Jacob tricked him out of it in exchange for a pot of stew, taking advantage of a moment when his brother was very hungry. Then he grasped for the blessing from his father as Isaac was dying, tricking his blind father into thinking he is Esau. Esau became murderously angry, so Jacob runs away from home.
He goes to the land his grandfather Abraham had come from and finds his uncle, Laban. Jacob gives as good as he gets with Laban. Jacob gets tricked into marrying Laban’s oldest daughter first, when the one he really wants for his wife is the younger daughter. Jacob gets even when he grasps to get herds of his own, rather than just tending his father-in-law’s herds. Through a bit of trickery, Jacob ends up owning large flocks of sheep and goats, and cattle. Laban gets fed up and Jacob has to leave. He decides to head home. Actually God tells him to go back home and Jacob does that, perhaps not so much because he wants to obey God or thinks it’s a great idea, but because he has found himself between a rock and a hard place.
Some of you may relate to Jacob’s trail of broken relationships. Or you may at least relate to the feeling of being caught between a rock and a hard place. You, too, may be able to look back and recall things that got you into that tough spot, things that you regret. There may be things you said or did because they seemed best for you at the time, but in the end they left others hurt and upset. Maybe you are in that kind of spot right now. Maybe grasping to meet your own needs has left others hurt and angry, even if you didn’t intend that. Maybe grasping for things has left you indebted in some way. However much Jacob might have tried to justify himself (for he could claim that all of it was God’s plan), nevertheless, he has caused damage along the way. He can’t run from it any longer; the time has come to face his past. For most of us, a time of reckoning will come as well, a time when we find ourselves in the ring, in the struggle.
Stripping Down
Before getting into the ring, one of the things a wrestler does is to strip down to just a thin wrestling suit. Off come the sweatshirt and sweatpants that have been keeping him warm. Off come any chains or rings that might get entangled. Off come a hat or glasses that might get in the way.
Jacob, too, goes through a process of stripping down before his wrestling match. It’s been 20 years since he left home, but he is worried about how he will be received and if his brother still wants to kill him. Jacob’s worry turns to real distress, great fear, when he gets word that Esau isn’t just waiting at home for Jacob to arrive, but has set out to meet him with his own private army. He decides that the best strategy is to try to placate his brother with gifts, to cover over the problem with gestures of kindness. Jacob sends out a series of gifts – 220 goats, 220 sheep, 30 camels, 30 cattle, 30 donkeys. But he’s still terrified, so he sends out his family in a series of groups, along with all his remaining herds and belongings. Jacob slowly strips down all that surrounds him, that protects him, until the story tells us, “So Jacob was left alone,…”
When we face a crossroads, a moment of crisis or a time of reckoning, there is often a process of stripping away our defenses, letting go of our excuses. As hard as that is, it is necessary to face a situation clearly or to be honest with ourselves or honest with others. Even more importantly, only when we take down our guard and get alone, we are able to get honest with God.
In the midst of the stripping down process, in the midst of his fear and dread, Jacob prays to God. That prayer is recorded in Genesis 32:9-12: Then Jacob prayed, “God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, God who told me ‘go back to your homeland and I’ll be good to you.’ I don’t deserve all the love and loyalty you have shown me, Lord. I left this land with only the clothes on my back and look at me now, blessings galore! Yet now save me, please, from my brother’s anger. I’m afraid he will attack me, as well as my family. But You Yourself, Lord, have promised to be good to me and to bless me with descendants like the sands of the sea, too many to count. Amen.”
Wrestling with God
Then Jacob was left alone,… and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
This story raises many questions in our minds, many questions that have been debated in Bible studies over thousands of years. Perhaps some of you are fighting the urge to raise your hand right now to ask, “But what about…? But how…? But who…? One of the biggest questions is a ‘who’ question. Who is it that wrestles with Jacob that night?
It is not immediately certain that this is God. Just like the visitors to Abraham and Sarah’s camp, this person is initially described as a man. People have wondered if perhaps it really was a man, perhaps it was Esau showing up in the night to wrestle it out with his brother. Or perhaps it was the demons of Jacob’s bad deeds and selfish choices, his conniving ways. Or perhaps it was more psychological, Jacob wrestling with his inner demons of fear and selfishness and regret, wrestling with his past.
But the fight is very real to Jacob. In fact, as the night draws to a close, Jacob seems to be winning. For some reason, Jacob’s opponent has to leave before the sun rises, so he deliberately throws Jacob’s hip out of joint. Yet even injured and in pain, Jacob hangs on and refuses to quit. He insists on getting a blessing. It’s at that point that we learn, along with Jacob, that the wrestler is God. When the one he has been wrestling with gives him a new name and explains the name, saying, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have wrestled with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Wrestled with God! Jacob confirms that by naming the place all this happened Peniel, where I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story.
So we learn it was God that Jacob was struggling with and God that initiated Jacob’s long night of struggle. As strange as it seems, God’s way of answering Jacob’s prayer to be saved was not to give reassurances and more promises, but to meet Jacob in the struggle, even to cause the struggle. If you have lived long enough, you have probably experienced a time when you felt as if you were struggling or wrestling with God. You may even carry wounds sustained in those struggles. But we are reminded by this story of Jacob, that sometimes all that is required of us is to not give up, to persist; and that if we do so, eventually these dark nights will bring change and bring victory. Jesus’ brother James, must have endured struggles for he wrote to Christian believers saying, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)
I have had that experience, not just one night but a season of struggle in many areas of my life, a struggle in which most of the time all I could do was not hang on, to persevere through the brokenness. Yet out of that struggle, God birthed a new thing in me which led me to prepare to be a pastor. In the trials, in the struggle, we are shaped and we take on that name, Israel. Israel isn’t just the name given to one man, to Jacob, but this story is actually telling us how God’s people as a whole were given this name. Israel became the name for the whole community of God’s people – the ones who wrestle/struggle/strive with God and with humans and overcome. It is our story, our name, for we, too, will wrestle with God in prayer, in moments of difficulty, at the crossroads of our lives. And we, too, are to hang on to God and will refuse to let go. We are not a people of passive faith, but of an active, persistent, persevering faith, willing to strive for heavenly blessings so that we too might see God face-to-face.
Are any of you wondering what happens next? Maybe wanting to flip ahead a few pages to see how the story ends? The sun comes up and Jacob limps away from the fight, but Esau is still out there and getting closer. Jacob cannot avoid facing his brother. Genesis 33 starts, “Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming with 400 men… He bowed to the ground 7 times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him, held him tight and kissed him. And they both wept.” (Gen.33:1,3,4) Then Jacob says to Esau, “You welcomed me so warmly, it is like seeing God’s face.”
Jacob has wrestled with God and been allowed to see God’s face, which enables him to be reconciled with his brother and to see God’s face again in his brother’s face. For most of us, that is exactly where we will see God’s face, in the face of those who have offer us forgiveness, who offer us kindness and love we don’t deserve. For that is who God is, this God at work wrestling with us!
A God who Wrestles
Our story may say that Jacob is given the name Israel because he wrestled with God and prevailed. But in Hebrew, when a name or word ends in ‘el’, Isra-el, it is actually saying something about God. God is ‘El’; God is the subject. The name Peni-el means God’s face. The name Isra-el means God Wrestles, God struggles and strives. God wrestles Jacob so Jacob might become the kind of person God wants him to be, mature and complete and prepared. Who is this God who wrestles, wrestles with us and wrestles on our behalf?
I find it mind-blowing that an all-powerful God, who made this whole world and everything in it, a God that is able to do humanly impossible things, that this God would be willing to take on the limitations of a human body to wrestle with a human, to allow the human to prevail, to win!, and then commend him for overcoming God! This is a God willing to humble Himself in order to come alongside us in times of distress. This is a God willing to do what it takes in order to be present with his children – in the man who wrestled Jacob, and in the man of Jesus of Nazareth.
God in Jesus wrestled in prayer on a dark, fear-filled night, sweating drops of blood in that struggle. He persisted, asking God to release him from suffering, yet if suffering was the only way to fulfill God’s plan he was willing to be the God who wrestled, who struggled, suffered and laid down his life for the world. Jesus is a God who was willing to submit to what appeared to be a human victory over his life, being killed on a cross by human hands. He submitted himself to human strength and power so that we might have a way out of broken relationships – broken relationships with God and with others. Jesus submitted himself to death so that we might overcome our fears and find hope and joy and love.
This is the God at work in the world, at work in our lives! This is the God who loves you so much He is willing to lose, if it brings you back into relationship with Him and with your brothers and sisters, so that you might see the face of God, that you might see the face of God in the face of your neighbor. So you might have the victory – not your own victory, but victory in Jesus!
Closing Song: “Victory in Jesus”
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