Wrestling With God


A Sermon On:

Genesis 32: 22-32



PREPARED BY

KEN GEHRELS

PASTOR

CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH

NEPEAN, ONTARIO



If he was alive today, hi-tech head-hunters would be on the phone to him regularly. Jacob, son of Isaac was the sort of character that lots of companies would love to have in their human resource pool. Energetic. Lots of initiative, almost to the point of aggressive. Not one to take "No" for an answer. If he had something in mind, he would go for broke to get it. The book of Genesis details his character and life for us.

Jacob was the second born of twins. He was delivered with his hand grasping his brother's heel, almost it seemed, trying to pull Esau back so that he could get out ahead. It was sort of a prophetic foretaste of his life. Jacob wanted desperately to win. By hook or by crook. Trouble was, his impulse was far too often to try it by crook.
Deep down he was a liar and a cheat. And he knew it. Not that he liked it. But every time again he would open his mouth and find himself telling a yarn to cover some shady deal.
He ended up spending his life running, twisting, getting out of one tight spot and quickly ending up in another. He had become mama's open favourite at home, swindled his brother, lied to his father, and has to run when his brother puts his name at the top of a hit list. He ends up at some relatives where he marries his cousin and begins a twenty year episode of cheating and being cheated by his father-in-law. Eventually he leaves and heads back to the land of his father.

Life is tough for Jacob. It is made no easier by his crazy schemes and quick, double-talking mouth. He knows it. He can't seem to get away from it.

But one thing. No matter how tough the odds, no matter how bleak it seems, no matter who lines up against him, Jacob is determined to succeed. He will NOT let anyone or anything get the upper hand. He is going to win in this crazy game of life, FOR SURE!! If anyone gets in his way, he will whip them.

Are you in Jacob's way? Then choose - move aside, or get knocked down. It's one or the other. One thing's for sure. He going to go through, right up the middle.

Jacob is now on the way home. Back towards the brother who had threatened to kill him. Back to the father he had cheated and lied to. While he's on the way he has an experience that changes him forever. He's getting closer to home and has been informed that his brother is approaching with 400 armed friends. A mini army. And probably -- I mean, doesn't it make sense -- probably out for Jacob's blood.
We're going to pick up the reading in Genesis at night time. Jacob is worried. Really worried. Scared silly would be a better way of putting it. Afraid not only for himself, but also for his family and possessions that he has accumulated through the years. His whole camp is asleep, but Jacob walks around. He CAN'T sleep. He has to find a way out of this latest predicament.
Let's read what happens.

GENESIS 32.22-32 p.38


Jacob is by the Jabbok river. It is a mountainous area. The place where he has to cross the river is a deep canyon, very narrow. A great place for a vengeful brother to ambush a slow-moving caravan, thinks Jacob. So he plans his move. Better get a jump on his brother. So he wakes up his whole camp and sends them across the river. Sure, a river crossing is dangerous in the dark, especially for the children and smaller animals. But it is not as dangerous as being ambushed there come morning.
So take the chance.
Get ahead.
Outsmart the opposition.

Finally they are all across. Jacob is the only one left behind. Like a good captain and leader he stayed until the last straggler was safely on the other side. Now he sits down to catch his breath. Just wanted to be alone for a few moments. And it is at that point that he meets his most formidable opponent.

Jacob sees a shadowy figure sneaking up behind him. He's not sure who it is. Advance scout from Esau? Local bandit trying to catch some of the stragglers from the Caravan and rob them? Who knows? And, as far as Jacob is concerned, who cares. One thing's for sure. There's no way anyone is going to mess up his plan now. He's going to get this creep. So he ducks behind a bush, doubles back and tackles the man.
The wrestling match is on - earnest wrestling match, desperate fight -
maybe to the end.
We who have read the passage know who that shadowy figure is. It is the angel of God, the messenger of God sent to represent him, to act with all divine authority and power. This is God's personal envoy. But Jacob doesn't see that. And the angel doesn't give it away at first, either.
Instead he tests Jacob. How stubborn is this character? How far will Jacob go? How strong is his will? What is his breaking point? All night they tussle, the angel every hour turning up the heat just a little bit. But Jacob, strong from years of farm work, meets him blow for blow, move for move. The sweat pours down. Black eye. Bloody nose. Torn shirt. But he won't give in. Never has yet. Not about to now! No human situation is too much for Jacob.

Then, seeing that Jacob was not to be persuaded otherwise, the angel has to reach down to his supernatural powers given by God.
He moves - touches,
just touches, Jacob's hip. And Jacob collapses, with a dislocated joint. And then Jacob realizes that this is no ordinary man he wrestles with.
He remembers scenes of the past - a vision of angels going up and down a stairway to heaven; a scene of guardian angels protecting his caravan earlier on the trip in the desert. He looks up and realizes that this, too, is a divine messenger.

And the angel says, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." In other words, "Enough already, Jacob. Quit this nonsense. Get on with your plan. Go do your thing. Your family is waking up. Esau is waking up. It's time to move on. You're a big boy. You're so smart. You've got great plans. You think you can do it. Go to it."

And I can imagine Jacob, pain shooting down his leg, catching his breath against a stone in that canyon by the Jabbok river, thinking back at all that had gone on. Thinking about how he had always wanted to make it big. How he cheated his brother and lied to his father to get the family blessing, the rights to the family inheritance. He remembers how he had cheated his father-in-law to get the most possible possessions.

Through his whole life it had always been "Jacob did this. Jacob did that. Jacob, Jacob, Jacob...."

Jacob,
and only Jacob, had been the main concern of his thoughts and dreams and actions.
Now he staring an angel in the face. The representative of God. He is staring at someone who just touched him and disabled his leg. If that is what one touch can do, it wouldn't take much for this supernatural being to crush him, either, would it?

Jacob has met his match and he knows it. Suddenly he doesn't feel so big or so strong anymore. His confidence evaporates. His attitude and approach changes. He doesn't want to go out and do his own thing anymore. The prophecy of Hosea, in ch.12.4, tells us that he now wept and begged for the angel's favour.Once more he grabs on to his wrestling opponent. Only this time it isn't with the intention of dashing him, broken, to the ground. Now it is a desperate clinging. Jacob hangs on, afraid that the angel will simply leave him. The angel has already made moves in that direction, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." Now Jacob is terrified to face the coming morning alone.
Up to now Jacob had done fine on his own. When he needed a blessing he stole one through deceit. Now he needs a real blessing.
No lying.
No cheating. Only a desperate, clinging, crying prayer to God through his angel. "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
God, who once had been a take-him-or-leave-him, I-can-do-fine-with-him- or-without-him, sort of person to Jacob, suddenly becomes indispensable.Jacob realizes he can't really make it in any sort of worthwhile way without God.
Strong, smart Jacob realizes that however big he is, however strong he might be, however clever his scheming, however invincible he appears to human opponents, there is One who stands greater than him.
Jacob is reminded of this by the pain that shoots up and down his leg, working into his back and cramping the muscles around his spine.
God and Jacob - the meeting.

Jacob's arrogant front collapses. He desperately reaches out.
And God, being the great God of compassion, forgiveness, and love, reaches back to Jacob;
even to arrogant Jacob.

Jacob is blessed.
The God who moments before had crippled him and who could have very easily crushed him, now blesses him. The God who had wrestled with Jacob, now walks with Jacob through life and wrestles for Jacob.
"I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."
Jacob realized the height of his arrogance and pretention.
And with great relief and gratitude he acknowledges that he had been spared through God's gracious goodness, when all he deserved was to have been crushed thoroughly and completely. He realizes now that he had been to God not some great heroic and wonder-working giant, one who performed great feats of universal and earthshaking significance. Rather, he was a pesky bug, a little buzzing nuisance, a wiggling speck who kept getting underfoot.
And yet,
and yet,
wonder of wonders,

God had gotten down on his hands and knees and loved that pesky, buzzing, wiggling little arrogant speck of a person.
He LOVED him!! He blessed him!
He had taken to having his messenger come in human form and wrestle with Jacob, interact with Jacob on his level, and finally to get through to Jacob.
So, with that Jacob is able to head back to the camp and onwards to the meeting with Esau. He's a cripple now. Weakened by his encounter with God's power. But strangely, he is also now much stronger - stronger because he leans on God's power.
Jacob experiences the truth later expressed by Jesus:
"He who loses his life for my sake will find it."
The truth expressed by St.Paul:
"the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." (1 Cor 1.25)

And there's the gospel good-news that reaches out to us this evening.
We, like Jacob, may have seen ourselves as being good, very good at lining things up for ourselves; at beating the odds; at overcoming whatever anyone could throw at us.
But tonight we, like Jacob, are face to face with a God that towers over us. We face a God who can crush, but who can also bless.

For us, too, God has come down to interact with; for us, too. Only this time it is not through some mere messenger angel of God. This time it is God himself. It is Jesus, God the Son who comes down.
He interacted with humanity. He became human. He wrestled with life and with sin as a human. He faced the devil as a human. And he WON! He WON and so as the victor wrestled out from his heavenly Father a blessing for each and every person that is willing to cling to him and say, "I need you. I will not let you go until you bless me!"

The amazing thing that Jacob's story illustrates is that, whatever our past, whatever our previous priorities, when we come to Jesus and confess our weaknesses to him, it will be his strength that comes to us and makes us strong for the wrestlings we will face yet in this life.
His forgiveness greater than our greatest sin.
His renewal broader than our deepest failing.
His life more secure than human death.
His hold on the future intense and sure.
His vision of the future and direction to it, clear and direct.
Into our entrepreneurial, reach for the top sort of society comes the bible's call to leave that, drop to our knees and cling to the feet of Jesus.To reach for the very top, to the top of heaven with empty hands.
Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.
And then leave here with the promise that we won't go alone. For the one who forgave, accepted, and went out with double-crossing, back-talking, always cheating Jacob will in His sovereign grace, and indescribable, forgiving love -- will also go with us!