When was the last time you went to an all-night wrestling match?

Jacob Wrestles with God

22 During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant’s wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. 23 After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions.

24 This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. 25 When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 “What is your name?” the man asked.

He replied, “Jacob.”

28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”

29 “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said.

“Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

30 Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” 31 The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip. 32 (Even today the people of Israel don’t eat the tendon near the hip socket because of what happened that night when the man strained the tendon of Jacob’s hip.) (New Living Translation)

When was the last time you were at an all-night wrestling match?

The story about Jacob on first sight seems really odd. What was really going on? Was the man God? The fact that he isn’t prepared to give his name is a giveaway – compare God speaking to Moses: ‘I am who I am’, or Jesus: ‘who do you say that I am?’ It’s up to us to decide.

To make sense of what is going on here we need to be reminded of the back story. Jacob cheats Esau of his father’s blessing and goes away, works for his uncle Laban for years, marries both Laban’s daughters with resulting family unhappiness. Polygamy was normal in that time and culture but it is nowhere given God’s approval. At different points neither wife manages to conceive and both suggest surrogacy as an option – not such a new idea as you might think - so Jacob sleeps with two of their servants. Result: a big dysfunctional not so happy family with 12 brothers and one named daughter, Dinah. Jacob gets rich but his methods are a bit tricky – read the story of the spotted and striped sheep. But now Jacob has heard the call to return home - and to face the brother he cheated all those years ago. And the night before this all-night wrestling match we hear Jacob’s prayer to God in verses 9-12. He decides to send gifts ahead of him – the best of his animals. Quite why, when he was worried for their safety, he also sends his wives and children ahead and stays behind himself is a good question. But here he is, alone – until ‘God’ comes to meet him. That’s the background.

If you haven’t recently been at an all-night wrestling match, I wonder when was the last time you lay awake at night, worrying about the future. Night-time is when we are most vulnerable to anxiety and irrational fears, but it can also be a time when we are open to God’s voice. I believe it was God’s voice one night calling me to ordination after visiting a friend - that’s another story. But it’s also a time when I can wake up and worry about situations out of my control. Prayer is a good antidote to this, memorising hymn words is useful. Daylight and the voices of other people are also needed to help us sift the negative and positive voices in our heads.

Jacob is alone. The physical wrestling match is an outer manifestation of Jacob’s inner struggle with God. God who has promised to bless him, and who has blessed him. And at the point where it looks as though he might lose everything, Jacob is not going to give up without a fight.

And he fights and it looks as though Jacob is winning. He is holding on – he won’t let go even though he has been physically injured. Jacob has worked hard and used all his ingenuity over the years to lay hold of the blessings God promised, and he’s not about to give it all away.

It’s only afterwards that Jacob states his belief that it is God who he has been fighting; and even though he won the fight, his awe and respect for God is not diminished. He is amazed that he is still even alive.

Have you ever fought with God? You may have argued and pleaded with God over different situations in your life. You will know how God answered your prayers or if you are still waiting or if you have given up hope. We can’t control what life offers us or what God does. But the story of Jacob teaches us that we can keep fighting with God to ask for his blessing. Perseverance and determination are necessary parts of faith. It’s also worth noting that Jacob’s prayers were accompanied by actions – he worked hard, and used all his ingenuity and his skill to gain the promised blessings – including working out some of the ways inheritance works out when you breed animals, but that too is another story.

Finally – the story is a reminder that God doesn’t love us because we are good people. God loves us because we are his children. This is something we have to keep on telling people who are outside the church, as most ordinary people think it is the other way round – that they can’t come to church and they certainly can’t come to God because they are not good enough. Like Jacob we instinctively understand that God is holy. And yet: Jacob was a dodgy character – but God blessed him anyway. We all make big mistakes - but God longs to bless us. And there’s no doubt that Jacob was a better man as a result of his faith than he would have been without it. It’s the same for each one of us. God calls us first – and then starts the slow process of training us to be worthy servants of our Lord Jesus and learning how to follow him. A work in progress that lasts a lifetime.

In the film just released, Barbie starts off as a plastic fantastic doll living in Barbieland, a world where everything is smiling, fun and superficial. As the film continues, she gradually discovers what it means to be human – this starts with thinking about death and includes sadness and real tears. And despite the pain, she comes to the conclusion that it is better to be fully human and feel sadness and pain, than plastic and fantastic.

Being Christian means living a life that is fully human. It doesn’t mean avoiding unhappiness and pain – though he wins God’s blessing Jacob is left with a permanent limp. But you can be sure he thought that was a small price to pay. I wonder if you can count many blessings from God in your life, as Jacob did.

Let’s praise and bless God for those, and be in awe that we too have come face to face with God in the person of Jesus Christ, and that through him we can know what it is to live a fully human life.

Amen.