Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] I saw God face to face and lived to tell the story.
[00:00:08] In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
[00:00:12] You may be seated.
[00:00:20] If you are a person of adventure, I imagine you are. If you're here in this area of the country, then you know that most adventures begin in the dark.
[00:00:35] I have yet to climb the Grand Teton, but I've heard of others. Dan and I were fishing the other day and he told me his story of climbing the Grand.
[00:00:45] It begins, the day begins really in the dark, if you're going to summit that mountain.
[00:00:51] Most adventures do begin in the dark, and those to be had in spiritual territory are no exception.
[00:00:59] Today we're given this adventurous, action packed story. It's Jacob's story, a wrestling match with God.
[00:01:09] This summer we've been tracking the book of Genesis. We've heard stories about Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob, who might be the most interesting character of them all. And today is probably the most important story we will ever hear about Jacob.
[00:01:23] By now we know a thing or two about Jacob.
[00:01:27] He was a twin, his older brother Esau, the two of them, they were born.
[00:01:33] Jacob was born after Esau. Esau is the oldest. And Jacob came out of the womb grabbing at the heel of his older brother, Esau. That's why he got the name Jacob heel grabber.
[00:01:48] Then he grew up and he was maybe jealous of his brother, who was the older of the two. Like I said, he was supposed to. Esau was supposed to get the birthright.
[00:01:59] But Jacob always wanted it. They had this sibling rivalry like no other rivalry before.
[00:02:05] So Jacob convinced his brother to exchange the birthright for a bowl of stew.
[00:02:12] That was an interesting story.
[00:02:14] He'll go on, Jacob, this heel grabber, this deceiver. He'll deceive his father on his deathbed so that he could get the birthright, the blessing.
[00:02:23] He would do that. He would dress up with goatskins and act like he had hairy arms like his brother Esau, deceiving his father.
[00:02:32] Then he would go off on his own.
[00:02:35] He would have a family. He would create a family, two wives. He would eventually have 12 sons who would be the foundation of the 12 tribes of Israel. He would then build a business, a very lucrative, successful business, sheep farming.
[00:02:49] And that brings us to today, when he crosses the Jabbok with his family. It's this most pivotal story in the Jacob narrative, and perhaps the most courageous thing Jacob ever did, was to put himself in a place where he could encounter the true and living God.
[00:03:07] During the night, Jacob got up, he took care of his family. Got them across the river safely. But Jacob stayed behind by himself.
[00:03:18] What would become the most life changing event in Jacob's life happened during the night when he crossed back over and was alone. So often it seems like the moment Jacob has, it gives form to our most life changing experiences. I can tell you I've been in the ordained ministry for nearly 20 years and this story seems to be the pattern for most others who come to me. They tell me about their life changing events or they get to know God more closely. And those experiences fit the pattern of the Jacob story. They come out and say, I've seen God face to face and live to tell the story.
[00:04:01] And what's that story, we might ask. It's Jacob's story only to become our story if we let it be. During the night, Jacob was met by this mysterious person.
[00:04:10] The person appeared to be a man. At first, some have believed it was an angel, but Jacob certainly believed it was God. When he came out of it, he said, I've seen God face to face.
[00:04:20] This is how God is often made manifest. In the Old Testament. There's these mysterious stories.
[00:04:26] We know the moments when a story might shift between the identity of a man or an angel and God himself. We remember when three strangers suddenly appeared at Abraham and Sarah's tent and Abraham welcomes them into his tent. And that became nothing less than an encounter with the true and living God.
[00:04:45] Perhaps you've had a moment in your life when you just thought you were talking to a person, but then you discovered that you were meeting God face to face.
[00:04:55] Now someone might want to explain this story away and deny that Jacob wrestled with God. But Jacob's under no illusion. He says, I've seen him face to face and I've lived to tell the story. So this is where we lean into this story.
[00:05:06] We're all in.
[00:05:08] It's God Jacob out there wrestling.
[00:05:13] Which then begs the question, how can a man, a human being, wrestle with the God of the universe? God's the one who created the world. He put the stars in the sky. He keeps this planet running, spinning. He can do anything in his power. We know that to be true. How could Jacob stand a chance with God, much less hold the God man in an unbreakable grip throughout the night?
[00:05:37] I don't know, but he does.
[00:05:40] And not only does Jacob wrestle with God, but there is a moment when it appears that this God man cannot win. And I don't think this should be overlooked. This hit me right between the eyes this last time I've read this story. Plenty of times. But this time it really got me. Our reading says that the man saw that he could not get the best of Jacob. Or in another translation, it says the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob.
[00:06:08] And I think we have to pause on this one beat half verse of the story, because within this story we begin to see something so remarkable about the God we worship in this place, the one we meet in the night.
[00:06:23] You see, Jacob came from a world of cunning and cleverness. He was deceitful.
[00:06:29] He was always jockeying for position. He represented that world and wrestled with God in the night. This God who does not play by the world's rules.
[00:06:40] And this is the striking character of the entire biblical witness.
[00:06:45] This wrestling match matters.
[00:06:50] Father Stephen Freeman. He once wrote what some would dismiss as primitive nonsense the Bible presents as an unvarnished account.
[00:07:00] The God of the Christian faith can not only enter into a wrestling match, but he can lose.
[00:07:11] That's the scandal of the Gospel.
[00:07:15] From the outside looking in, we might ask, how can this be? He couldn't get the best of Jacob, could he? He's God. How could it be so? God can't lose, we want to say, but this is the scandal. This is what St. Paul calls power made perfect in weakness.
[00:07:36] This God of Jacob is also the God who took on flesh, dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ. If this God allows himself to be wrestled, then what else? We might say, if God can be held by Jacob, well, he can become a baby.
[00:07:52] He can wash feet, he can be given into the hands of sinners. He can be nailed to a cross. He can actually die.
[00:08:01] The wrestling at pennile already hints towards Christ. God's power, true power, is revealed in vulnerability. It's not strength in the way we once thought about strength. It's not the world of cleverness and cunning and jockeying for position. People saw Jesus hanging on the cross and they said, well, if you are the Son God, then come down from the cross, save yourself. If you had real power, then you'd save yourself and you wouldn't lose.
[00:08:32] But that is exactly where our God meets us.
[00:08:36] In the pain, in the dark, in the place where we can meet him in all of our weakness. And that's where he blesses us.
[00:08:46] That's where he gives us a new name.
[00:08:51] It's in that moment Jacob, God wrestling. And Jacob is asked a question.
[00:08:57] He says, what is your name? Surely God knows his name. But the question is not asked for God's sake, is it? It's asked for Jacob's he's really asking, who do you think you are?
[00:09:09] And Jacob answers in the only way he knows how. My name's Jacob. Heel, grabber, deceiver, the cunning one.
[00:09:16] Jacob comes from this other world, the world of trickery and deceit.
[00:09:21] Jacob has wrestled his whole life with his brother, his father, his uncle Laban. He has spent his whole life trying to secure himself by cleverness and strength.
[00:09:31] And now, in the darkness, God asks him to name himself, and he says, I'm Jacob.
[00:09:38] But God has his way with Jacob and saying, no, you shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and you have prevailed.
[00:09:50] Jacob isn't the same.
[00:09:52] Now, there's a Jacob before he crossed the Jabbok, and there's a Jacob after he crossed the Jabbok River.
[00:09:58] You know, the night is one person, but when the sun rose, when the sun came up, he was a new person. He had seen God face to face in the dark. He wrestled with him, yes, and he'd been wounded, yes, but he was nevertheless blessed. He had to receive. He was always trying to take the blessing for himself, but he had to receive. And he received this new name as well, because he was a new person.
[00:10:21] Last year, I had the privilege of meeting this remarkable young man in my community back home in Kerrville, Texas.
[00:10:30] This young man, he started coming to church in the spring of last year. In fact, the first service he attended was on Easter Day, and he hasn't stopped coming since.
[00:10:38] And so one day last spring, I took him to lunch and I heard his story. And it was not an easy story to hear.
[00:10:46] He had experienced a very difficult childhood, but he was hopeful that God would bless him now. He wasn't going to give up. It was like he was holding on to God. He was actually determined to look for the true God. He knew he was out there, not the God he had learned about in his upbringing in an unhealthy home.
[00:11:05] And so we talked, and he eventually said, could I be baptized? He wouldn't baptize. He said, could I be baptized? I said, of course. Yes, you can be baptized. And so we met for weeks, talking about baptism, what that might mean for him. And then one day over lunch, he told me that he wanted to change his legal name.
[00:11:20] He wanted this new name. He said he wanted a new start. He didn't know this, but then I told him. I taught him about the custom.
[00:11:28] In the early church, when someone was baptized, they would often receive a new name, too. That's what christening Actually means your name would change because you were a new person.
[00:11:39] So that excited him even more.
[00:11:42] And when he chose his name, he chose Gabriel as his middle name. And I asked him, why Gabriel? He said, because when I read about Gabriel in the Bible, he's the angel who gives me hope about the future Gabriel, he's the one, Father Burr, who comes to Mary and he tells her that nothing will be impossible with God.
[00:11:59] And he said, I want the same to be true for me.
[00:12:02] So I baptized him with his new name.
[00:12:06] It was Jacob's story all over again, the name marking the transformation only given by God.
[00:12:15] Jacob had been called by the only name he knew. Deceiver, heel, grabber, a name that meant trickster.
[00:12:23] And all these names, they tell us something true about Jacob. But nothing of them is flattering, and none of them is ultimately true. Now he's Israel.
[00:12:32] The name can mean one who wrestles with God.
[00:12:35] And a new person has been called forth.
[00:12:39] He's not just known by his past, but he's known by his encounter with God.
[00:12:44] He wrestled with God. He came to know a God who was not strong in the way the world defines strength.
[00:12:51] God was overcome even in that moment. And when Jacob asked for God's name, he received a blessing instead.
[00:12:58] Only later, God will give out his name with another man who struggled. Moses. And that's when God gave his name. I am who I am.
[00:13:07] But he was that God to Jacob before he was that God to Moses. He was that God to my friend, the young man in Kerrville. That is who God is to each and every one of us.
[00:13:18] Friends, I've known a deep transformation in my own life over the past year. It's been transformational for my whole community. I live in Kerrville, where we experienced a devastating flood on July 4th of last year.
[00:13:37] And that awful morning, it began in the dark. I remember waking up in the dark. And it was only the beginning of our own wrestling with God.
[00:13:48] At times, it's felt like the Jacob story all over again.
[00:13:53] And I can assure you we're not the same people we were before the flood.
[00:14:00] And our pain.
[00:14:02] We have come face to face with a God who also knows weakness, pain, vulnerability.
[00:14:11] We would not let go of God. For the past 13 months, we have not let go of God and we've demanded his blessing. And I can tell you thousands of people stories about the people in my community and where God, that God who wrestled with Jacob has shown up again and again and again.
[00:14:31] And we're not without a limp in Kerr county, but we're living in a new way with a strength that does not deny weakness. We're empowered by the power that's made perfect in weakness.
[00:14:47] The Christian life is not a life of people who've been given sort of an escape guard. It's the life of the people who come face to face with a God who knows the struggle.
[00:14:59] Lest we forget that the risen Christ, he stood before his first disciples and he showed him his hands. He showed him his side still bearing the marks of the nails. That's the Christ who stands before us, the one we see face to face. Yes, we can live and tell the story.
[00:15:19] All of us come through the night changed.
[00:15:24] We come through with a lamp.
[00:15:26] We come through with blessings.
[00:15:29] We come through with a new identity. We are changed.
[00:15:34] And as the sun rises like it did on Jacob, we find ourselves able to say with him, I saw God face to face and lived to tell the story.
[00:15:52] Amen.
