Genesis 32: The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven

Transcription

1 Genesis 32: The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 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. 26 Then he said, Let me go, for the day is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let you go, unless you bless me. 27 So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. 28 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. 29 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. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 1

2 A God Who Gets Dirty Do you remember high school biology class? I remember it clearly. My teacher was Mr. Mastroni, who also happened to be the football coach. He seemed more of a football coach than a biology teacher, but he was well liked by all the students. However, I didn t so much enjoy biology. For as much time as we spent learning about the body through classroom lessons, our textbook, and watching short documentaries, I knew there would come a day when the book learning would cease and we would have a more hands-on learning experience. We would have to get our hands dirty. We would have to dissect. For my class that meant fetal pigs. Ugh! Just saying the words makes me shudder. I can still remember what it felt like to carve into the skin of the pig. The skin was so much tougher than I expected it to be. I was thinking about that experience the other night Sandy when Sandy I were watching one of those medical shows that take you into the operating room and show you an operation in progress. These types of shows are not for the squeamish, i.e., those who are disturbed by seeing blood and bone and the inner workings of the human body. The censors blur the most graphic images, but you still see quite a bit. (As an aside, let me say that I find censorship of any kind to be disturbing. At the same time, I am amused that here in Korea, while the TV censors blur images of bloody operations and people smoking cigarettes, they leave uncensored the many four-letter words of American films. I know they re in English, but still.) Anyway, the medical show we were watching was profiling patients who had cancer of the jaw or tongue. During one of the operations, the surgeon actually removed a significant portion of the patient s jaw, including the skin of the cheek and jaw line. He then reconstructed the jaw using an implant that had been molded from the patient s own jaw. To cover the implant, he removed a flap of skin from the patient s back and then attached it to his face. This was amazing to watch. It was 2

3 almost like he was completing a puzzle as he laid the patch of skin along the jaw line. If you can t tell, I am in awe of what modern medicine can do, especially with a talented surgical team the doctors and nurses who use the most advanced medical technology to give so many patients a new lease on life. In addition to advances in technology and surgical techniques, there have been enormous advances in medications as well. From penicillin to the polio vaccine to modern AIDS medications, the last three or four generations of humanity have had their quality of life improved and their lives extended by receiving medication for illnesses that would have killed or crippled earlier generations. As amazing as the advances in medications are, there are times when the only option is surgery. Especially with diseases like cancer, in which tumors can silently spread throughout the body, sometimes only surgery can ensure that the cancer is removed once and for all. The body must be cut open; the surgeon must go in and get his or her hands dirty, so to speak. Surgery, as real-life medical shows demonstrate, is not pretty. Incisions are made, tissue is separated and removed from the body, and even bone must sometimes be sawed through. Major surgery is a graphic, bloody mess! Yet only by immersing themselves in that mess, by cutting into and causing trauma to the body, can surgeons correct the problem. They can take x-rays and ultrasound and MRIs to learn where the problem lies, but to fix the problem they have to get hands on; they have to cut open the body, and that can get messy. As I mentioned in an earlier sermon, Genesis is a book that is splattered with the messiness of life of sin and all its sloppy consequences. In that earlier sermon we looked at Abraham and how God redeemed or cleaned up after Abraham s sin, which was to send into the wilderness his second wife Hagar and her young son Ishmael. In today s reading the subject is Jacob. Jacob has had a complex relationship with his twin brother Esau [SLIDE]. Esau was born first, and was thus considered 3

4 older and therefore heir. But in a bit of foreshadowing, Esau was born with Jacob grasping his heel. Even in the womb Jacob was already competing with his brother. Up to this point in Jacob s life he has claimed his older brother Esau s birthright by purchasing it for a pot of stew (Gen. 25:29-34) and deceived his father Isaac by receiving the blessing intended for Esau. Now after spending 20 years in the service of his father-in-law Laban, he is returning to his home country. But to get there, he has to pass through the land of Edom, which is controlled by Esau. Given how he has treated Esau up to this point, Jacob doesn t expect a warm welcome. He is, in fact, scared, because he is traveling with his wives Leah and Rachel, and their eleven children, plus all of his flocks and herds. He feels vulnerable. All that he has his brother can now take away or destroy. Jacob does three things [SLIDE]: (1) he prays to God to be delivered from the hand of Esau; (2) by way of messenger he sends his brother a peace offering hundreds of goats, sheep, camels, cows, and donkeys; and (3) he divides his people into two companies and sends them on ahead, hoping that if Esau comes upon one, that the other will escape. Jacob then spends a long night alone in the wilderness. The last time that Jacob was alone at night he had a mysterious dream involving a ladder stretching to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. This night too promises to be mysterious. Without any introduction, warning, or explanation we are told that a man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak. We don t learn what his name is, where he comes from, or why he decides to wrestle with Jacob. He just appears. Nor does he seem to be the fairest of fighters. While Jacob has the better of him he strikes Jacob on the hip, knocking his hip joint out of its socket. Having struck Jacob, the man then tries to stop the fight. Daylight is coming, he says. But Jacob is not having it. He is unrelenting, refusing to let the man go until he blesses Jacob. What is your name? the man asks. Jacob, he replies. 4

5 Then, in perhaps the strangest aspect of this entirely strange episode, the man gives Jacob a new name. You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed. Jacob then asks the man his name, but he refuses. The man blesses Jacob. Jacob names the place where this event occurred Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. And Jacob continues on his way, now walking with a limp because of his injured hip. What a strange, mysterious story! What are we to make of this? We are told that Jacob wrestled with a man but then this man turns out to be God. Is this even possible? Why would God wrestle with a human being, let alone lose to one? And let s remember that Jacob is known for his wits, not his muscles. His brother Esau has the brawn, while Jacob has the brain. These are the sorts of questions we encounter with a literal reading of this story [SLIDE]. A literal reading approaches the text as though it is a news article, as though a reporter observed the incident and reported the facts exactly as they happened. A literal reading seeks certainty and is uncomfortable with ambiguity. There is black or white but no gray. A literal reading demands that we suspend our disbelief and just accept everything in the story at face value. Another way of looking at this story is the approach taken by some biblical scholars who seek to demystify the stories of the Bible. They look for rational explanations of the Bible s more miraculous and mysterious stories. Thus, they tell us that this story likely evolved over many years. In its original form, the story probably featured Jacob wrestling not with the God of Israel but with a Canaanite god or demon. The story takes place at the River Jabbok. In Near Eastern culture, demons were thought to live near bodies of water. They were more active at night, and this story takes place at night. It certainly seems plausible that as the story was passed from one generation to the next, the demon was changed to God. 5

6 And yet neither the literal reading nor the purely scholarly reading do justice to the story. The problem with the literal reading is that the Bible is concerned with more than a mere presentation of facts like a news article. But the Bible is also more than just a collection of stories, however they may have been created or passed on. This is what the scholarly reading misses. To get to the heart of this most mysterious story we need to move beyond this false choice of either/or. There is something strange and wonderful happening here in this account of Jacob wrestling with God. This story tells us something about Jacob and the nation he comes to represent, but it also tells us something about God and how God relates to all human beings. Let s remember the situation that Jacob is in. His brother Esau, whom he has supplanted as heir, is coming for him. Jacob fears that he comes ready to attack. So he divides his family and all his possessions into two camps and sends them off in different directions. He remains in the wilderness alone. He prays to God for deliverance. Here is the text of Jacob s prayer [SLIDE]: 11 Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. 12 Yet you have said, I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number. Jacob is terrified that he s about to lose everything. What does he get in answer to his prayer? A stranger attacks him without warning or explanation. So much for answered prayer! But that s where the story really becomes interesting! It s not any man that Jacob wrestles with but God. God has come from heaven to earth to tussle on the ground 6

7 with this lone man. But God has not come to pick a fight far from it. God has come to bless this man Jacob. In fact, God has already blessed him by responding to his prayer [SLIDE]. The very fact that God appears to Jacob is already an answer to Jacob s prayer. God has heard Jacob. And God has responded by coming to him in the flesh. God has come to meet him face to face. There are passages in the Bible that call attention to God s remoteness the enormous gap between God and us [SLIDE]. In some of the Psalms, for example, the psalmist laments that God hides his face from the people. How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? (Ps. 13:1). Job also, in questioning his suffering how he lost all his children and all his possessions and then his health challenges God, and asks, Why do you hide your face, and count me as your enemy? (Job 13:24). But there are other passages that highlight God s proximity to human beings. As far removed from us as God is, not being bound by space or time as we are, there are still instances that reveal that God is, in fact, very close so close, as to be seen face to face. This story of God wrestling with Jacob is one of them. In having God wrestle with Jacob, the writer of this passage is making a remarkable theological point: God is not distant. Although our experience may be one of God hiding his face from us, God in fact joins us in our earthly struggles. God crosses the veil of eternity and enters into our world. This is becoming a Christmas sermon because what I am speaking about here is the Incarnation Emmanuel, God With Us. For nowhere is it more clear that God identifies with humanity his creation than in the fact that he actually became human for real this time. 7

8 In verse 30, after having seen God face to face, Jacob names the place of their encounter Peniel, which in Hebrew literally means face of God. But in the New Testament the face of God takes on a special meaning. The face of God is Jesus Christ himself who is fully God in human flesh. The reality of Jesus Christ is God s way of saying I am here. I am with you. Your pain is my pain. Your struggle is my struggle. Your sin is my sin. Of course, I m not suggesting that Christ sinned. What I m saying is that all of the pain, the struggle, the failure, and the sin that our flesh is heir to all of it Christ has made his own. Let s review the evidence [SLIDE]. Christ knew poverty; after all, he was born in an animal s feeding trough. He knew homelessness; his ministry took him from town to town across Galilee and to Jerusalem. He knew hunger; he fasted for 40 days in the wilderness. He knew sadness; he wept over the death of his friend Lazarus. He knew loneliness; he was abandoned by all of the disciples at the time of his arrest. He knew what it is to be scorned; he endured mocking and beatings from those who hated him. In taking on human flesh, in coming to be God-with-us, Christ assumed all of our pain and misery. If Christ identifies with us through his life, he does even more so through his death. On the cross of Calvary Christ took upon himself all of the dirt and filth that is sin both the pain and misery that we inflict upon each other, and the pain and misery with which we afflict ourselves. And through Christ s resurrection God the Father redeemed the suffering of the Son. Death did not have the final say. And by calling us to be born anew in Christ, the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the reality of the Father s love [SLIDE]. Just as Jacob was given a new identity Israel, for he would become the father of the nation that bears his name so too are we given a new identity child of God, beloved. For how could Christ subject himself to such suffering except on behalf of those whom he loved? Human pain, suffering, and misery are all too real. Just look at the headlines coming from Gaza, or Syria, or Ukraine, or the US border with Mexico, where thousands of 8

9 unaccompanied children from Central America are fleeing violence in their homeland. And while the headlines showcase the worst of human suffering, there is a more quiet suffering that doesn t garner headlines but that is no less real: loneliness, depression, fear, shame, guilt, despair, and all the negative emotions that make a mess of our lives. Yet despite the reality of all this negativity actually, not despite but because of all this negativity, the reality of Christ s love is even stronger. For Christ chose willingly chose to enter into all of it. God is not far removed from human pain and suffering because Christ endured it all in his life and in his death, and Christ joins us in it here and now. God, let s remember, is unafraid to get his hands dirty. 9