"Steps of a Disciple: Wrestling With God"
Genesis 32: 22-31; 2 Timothy 3: 10-17
by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
October 16, 2016
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’
But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. - Genesis 32: 22-31
Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. - 2 Timothy 3: 10-17
Whether Jacob knew it or not, he was about to face his limits. This plays out quite artistically in the Hebrew language which our English translations do not capture. Jacob (ya’aqov) approached the Jabbok River (yabboq) and there another wrestled him (ye’abeq). Do you hear the play on words?
The limits drawn around and throughout Jacob’s story were lines connected by a life of struggle. From the time Jacob and his twin brother Esau were in Rebekah’s womb they struggled and caused her great discord. They were two nations divided in her womb (Gen 25:22-23). Jacob’s name means “supplanter” or one who uses force or scheming to take another’s place. And Jacob indeed was a schemer and manipulator.
Jacob deceived Esau to sell his birthright for a cup of soup (Genesis 25: 29-34). Jacob deceived his father Isaac to receive the patriarch’s final blessing which enraged Esau enough to want to kill his brother (Genesis 27). After Jacob left home to make a life for himself, he continued to scheme and deceived his father-in-law Laban to profit himself at Laban’s expense (Genesis 30: 37-43). It’s an understatement to say that Jacob lived his life as a man on the run.
Despite the ways Jacob sought what benefited him, God continued to pursue Jacob. God met Jacob in a dream with a promise to bless him as God has once blessed Abraham. But God also instructed Jacob to return to his home with the assurance that God would be with Jacob and would not leave him until God had done what God had promised (Genesis 28:13-15).
Something within Jacob was not content with all that was estranged, divided, and unresolved in his life. So Jacob, his family, and his livestock set out to follow God’s direction home to meet his brother Esau. On the way Jacob encountered God’s messengers to share that Esau was indeed coming to meet Jacob with four hundred men in his company.
Only here do we see Jacob utter a prayer to God, “O God of my Father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and your kindred and I will do you good,’ I am too small for the least of your steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown. Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother” (Genesis 32: 9-11).
Hoping to appease his brother and find favor, Jacob sent his family and livestock across the river to meet Esau. And now Jacob is left alone as the night presses in. He comes face to face with his own limitations and there another wrestled with Jacob. This other is a spiritual presence that we read to be a divine messenger or angel of God. They grapple in the dust through the night.
But notice that Jacob does not initiate the wrestling match. It is this divine being. I cannot help but wonder if this angel was trying to create an opportunity for Jacob to wrestle with the culmination of his life in a constructive way? Jacob was preparing to face the biggest conflict of his life and it brought Jacob great anxiety and uncertainty to do this. He did not know what would happen on the other side of that river.
He was at the most vulnerable point of his life. By wrestling with the angel, Jacob was grappling with his own self and all that was unfinished. It is a hard thing to face the worries, fears, uncertainties, and conflicts in life head on. Any of one of us would probably rather turn around and run from them. Isn’t it easier to cut off these areas of life rather than dealing with them?
Remember Jacob had prayed that God would deliver him through this ordeal of facing his greatest challenge. If Jacob truly wanted deliverance he could not avoid facing this struggle. Jacob could not go around it. He could only go through it. And God promised to be with him and to do Jacob good.
Wrestling gives us an image of God fighting for Jacob as Abraham’s grandson exerts all of his physical, emotional, and spiritual energy. Once Jacob’s energy is spent he is freed to let go of all the loose ends of his life and to let God begin the process of reconciliation.
I also wonder if the angel wrestled with Jacob to bring him to a place of humility. Jacob had always grabbed the heels of opportunity to benefit himself over and against his own family. In order for God to fulfill the blessing promised, Jacob would need to grapple with this new experience to learn the virtue of humility. Jacob would need to see the limits of his own pride in the face of God’s steadfast love and strength.
And so wrestling also portrays an image of God fighting Jacob’s “stubbornness and pride.”[1] As soon as the angel strikes Jacob on the hip socket, Jacob begins to feel the effects of humility and he is forever changed by the struggle.
As darkness began to give way to the rise of a new day, Jacob knew something about God’s deliverance that he did not know before. God would not let go of Jacob in order to do something powerful in Jacob’s life. And so Jacob asks the angel to bless him. He receives the new name of Israel for he had striven with God and with humans and had endured. And yet we know that Israel – God’s chosen people – continued to struggle with God throughout the generations of our shared history.
Jacob’s story – Israel’s story is indeed our story. For we continue to wrestle with God and all that life holds.
We fight with our fears and being vulnerable with God.
We are challenged by family dynamics and strained relationships.
We struggle to find a sense of who were are within all our imperfections and weaknesses.
We wrestle with all that we have done and left undone.
We grapple with the ways God’s Word speaks to life issues, injustice, and concerns.
We weigh the costs of what we have sacrificed to find meaning in life.
No matter what we struggle with I think we are all searching to find something that will bring a sense of peace. We feel the ways that struggling with ourselves pulls us apart and we long to feel the effects of reconciliation.
So hear this encouraging word - do not fear the struggle. Do not fear the struggle because the most important part of it is to show up in an effort to be made whole. We see this truth in Jacob, in countless other stories in Scripture, and in Christ’s faithfulness of sacrificial love to struggle for us on the cross in order that we be made whole in the promise of resurrection.
Showing up to face our limits is an opportunity for us to draw near to our Creator. It is a space to be real with the One who knows the full depths of all we question, doubt, and endure. God honors our efforts to show up trusting God will deliver us. God will fight for us as we grow in our commitment as a disciple. God will also interrupt our lives in an effort to humble us and loosen the grip of our own self-will.
Whether God is fighting for us or God is fighting against our stubborn pride, we too experience God’s blessing if we will just let go and let God. God continues to pursue us in an effort to work through all that is standing in the way of empowering you and me for every good work in this gift of faith.
I encourage you to be strong and courageous to engage the struggles in life for the Lord our God will be with us wherever we go. And because of that we will be forever changed by our struggling, again and again. It is a humbling experience for sure. The only things we have to lose are those things in our hearts and minds that God is trying to shake loose from our lives. There is no life experience that is wasted upon God for God can use it all to teach us, heal us, and empower us to cross our limitations into God’s promises of a new day and a newly resurrected life.
To wrestle with God proclaims that no matter what our struggle entails – no matter how overwhelming it seems – no matter how vulnerable we are – God does indeed enter into the struggle with us. God never lets us go. God desires to strengthen us through our human weakness so that God’s power of redemption and reconciliation might be revealed.
May we take the next step of a disciple and never forget that truth of the gospel.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sources Referenced:
Art Image "Jacob Wrestles with God," by Jack Baumgartner
[1] D. W. Cotter, “Berit Olam: Genesis” (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2003), p. 246.
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