“Slick.”
That could have been his name: “Slick.” Nowadays, he might be a used-car
salesman; one of those smarmy types who is ever so friendly, because he knows
he’ll get a fat commission if he sells you a car. Oh, yes; he was slick, all
right. But his name wasn’t “Slick;” it was “Jacob.” And that was an appropriate
name for him, because in Hebrew, that means “the grabber.” Jacob grabbed, all
right, and he always got exactly what he wanted, regardless of what he had to
do to get it. He was only honest when it suited his purposes, and that didn’t
happen very often. It was always easier for him to trick people into giving him
what he wanted. First, there was that affair of his brother’s birthright, the
right of the firstborn son to receive double the inheritance upon the father’s
death. He took that away from his older brother Esau in exchange for a bowl of
stew. Then he stole the oldest brother’s blessing from Esau by tricking their
old, blind father. He dressed up in goatskins and told Isaac that he was Esau,
and he took the blessing that should have gone to his brother! He got away with
it, too. His mother shipped him off right away to his uncle Laban before Esau
could get hold of him. And even when he was with Laban, he was a double dealer.
While he was taking care of Laban’s sheep and goats, he made sure that he got
the strongest ones for himself! Slick, I tell you; he was always slick.
But
now – well, now the chickens have finally come home to roost. Jacob has decided
that he’s rich enough to go out on his own, so he’s left his uncle to come back
to his old home. He’s sent a friendly message to his brother Esau just to let
him know that he was coming. Well, Esau is coming to meet him, all right – with
four hundred men! Jacob must have realized that he couldn’t wiggle away from
his past any more. Oh, he sent some nice livestock on ahead of him as a gift
for his brother, hoping to pacify him – but Jacob knew that it might be all to
no avail. Esau and his men might slaughter him right along with his wives, his
children, and all his servants, and take Jacob’s flocks and herds for himself,
the same way that Jacob had taken away his birthright and his blessing. So
Jacob had two choices. He could try to run away from the consequences of his
actions one more time. Maybe he could flee to some country where no one knew
him and start over. Or he could face the music.
For
what might have been the first time in his life, Jacob decided to stay put and
face the music. And because he chose to stay, he wrestled all night with a
nameless opponent. He was grabbed from behind as he was standing on the bank of
the Jabbok River. Jacob didn’t have a clue who it was. Was it a robber hoping
to overpower him and take his money? Was it an assassin sent from Esau? Was it
Esau himself? Maybe it was even a demon: one who lurked in the wilderness and
prowled in the darkness of the night. Or maybe Jacob was really wrestling with
himself. After all, he must have wanted to run away to avoid the wrath of his
brother Esau, and to save his own skin. Maybe the physical struggle with the
mysterious stranger reflected one that was going on inside Jacob himself as he
considered and reconsidered what action he should take. Oh, it was a bitter
struggle. In fact, it was such a bitter struggle that Jacob’s opponent wrenched
Jacob’s hip joint just as dawn was breaking. But Jacob held on, despite the
pain and the disadvantage of a wrenched hip. He held on so tightly, in fact,
that his opponent had to ask to be let go. And because Jacob wrestled with such
persistence – because he went the distance – he received a blessing. But this
blessing wasn’t like the one that he stole from his brother. No, this blessing
was one that he had earned through pain and persistence. This
blessing was the real deal! In the end, the actual wrestling match was a
stalemate; no one won or lost. But by wrestling his opponent honestly – by not
avoiding the match or running away from it or “fixing” it to his own advantage
– Jacob himself was the big winner. Maybe that’s why he was blessed. For the
first time in his life, Jacob had confronted a situation honestly and realized
that he might lose! Maybe he received a blessing not because he had won the
wrestling match, but because he had wrestled at all.
Have
you ever thought about how many people in the Bible had to face tough
decisions? Oh, they might not have fought a physical opponent, but they all had
to struggle for their blessings. Jacob’s grandfather Abraham had been commanded
by God to sacrifice his son. Until the very last moment, he thought he would
have to kill his only son and burn him on an alter as an offering. Queen Esther
risked her own life to save the lives of all the Jews in Persia. She risked
going to the King without being summoned – an offense punishable by death. But
before she did it, she fasted and prayed for three whole days to summon her
courage. The toughest struggle of all may have been Jesus in the Garden of
Gethsemane. He knew that he was facing a long, painful death, and he prayed,
“If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Luke tells us that he struggled
so hard that his sweat was like blood falling on the ground. They all wrestled
with difficult situations – Jacob, Esther, Abraham and Jesus. And in the end,
they all received a blessing because of their struggles.
Maybe
these faith ancestors of ours are offering us a model in their struggles. A
life of faith isn’t always easy. In fact, the most difficult times may be the
very times when the biggest blessing awaits us. But we don’t get that blessing
by turning away from the struggle. We get it by wrestling our best, by
wrestling persistently, and by continuing to wrestle even though we may be in
pain. We can all remember times that we have wrestled with difficult situations.
We don’t look for them; they just pop up like mushrooms when we least want to
deal with them. Sometimes we wrestle individually. When an elderly aunt is
nearing the end of her life, suffering with inoperable, terminal cancer, what
does our faith call us to do? Do we prolong her life as long as possible in
hopes of a miracle; or do we stop what is probably ultimately futile treatment
and release her into God’s arms? Sometimes we wrestle as a congregation with
questions like “Should we move into new areas of ministry? What will that mean
for the ways that we spend our time and our money?” The answers aren’t always
clear. And sometimes the biblical text itself becomes the midnight wrestling
opponent. When we venture away from
stories that are familiar and comforting, we risk wandering into the wilderness
of challenging passages that are seldom read and almost never preached on. But even
they offer us a blessing if we will face them. Some years back, biblical
scholar Phyllis Trible wrote a book entitled, “Texts of Terror.” In it she
examines Old Testament stories that are both hard to read and hard to
understand. She writes in the introduction to that book: “To tell and hear
tales of terror is to wrestle demons in the night…. The fight itself is
solitary and intense. We struggle mightily, only to be wounded. But yet, we
hold on, seeking a blessing…. If the blessing comes, it does not come on our terms.
Instead, as we leave the land of terror, we limp.”
Oh,
yes, in the struggle, we risk being permanently changed. Jacob limped as he
left the scene in the light of the new day’s dawn. Maybe he limped for the rest
of his life. Can’t you just imagine his grandchildren asking him about it? “Grandpa,
why does your hip always hurt you?” But instead of a story about a bad tackle
in a high school football game, he would tell them about a wrestling match with
a mysterious opponent in the dark of night, and about a blessing given only at
the break of day.
It
isn’t easy to wrestle with thorny issues and difficult questions. But if we are
honest with ourselves, we know that thorny issues and difficult questions are a
part of life. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that we can’t avoid
wrestling with them. We can’t steal life’s blessing through any trickery that
we might dream up. To get it, we have to wrestle through the night and through
our pain. But as the dawn breaks, its light will allow us to see clearly enough
to identify our opponent. And when we do, we will realize just what has taken
place and with whom we have really been wrestling. We will realize that the God
we thought had abandoned us was closer than our own breath, struggling right
along with us. God’s presence – God’s love – will not let us go. And then,
together with Jacob, we will be able to say, “I have seen God face to face!”
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