In
this story, Jacob is camping all alone, beside a river. During the night, a man wanders into his
campsite and challenges Jacob to a wrestling match. Jacob and the man wrestle for the rest of the
night, with neither able to pin the other—or, even gain an advantage. As the wrestling match progresses, Jacob
realizes that he is wrestling with God. Jacob
and God continue to wrestle, and it becomes clear that neither will prevail against
the other. In frustration, God strikes
Jacob on his hip socket, effectively hobbling Jacob. Yet, even with the pain from the hip injury,
Jacob continues to maintain his hold on God.
The two wrestlers continue
competing, until the first, rosy rays of sunlight begin to appear on the
horizon. At that point, God asks Jacob
to let him go. (When making this
request, God is really thinking about Jacob’s well-being because God knows that
if Jacob sees God face-to-face, God’s overwhelming glory will kill Jacob.) Yet, even with the risk of death, Jacob vows
to continue his hold on God, until God blesses him. Ultimately, God blesses Jacob, and the two
end their wrestling match. As the sun
continues to rise, Jacob is once again all alone. He gathers his gear, crosses the river, and
continues his journey, limping along with his injured hip.
The story of Jacob wrestling God is
a fascinating story, raising many questions.
For instance, how was Jacob able to stay in the ring with God? Why did God take a human form, which was not
able to overwhelm Jacob and pin him to the ground?
While this is a very rich text, with
many facets, I intend to focus my message on the fact that Jacob became a
stronger person through his wrestling with God.
Although most of us will never physically wrestle with God as Jacob did,
many of us do wrestle with God, figuratively.
Some of us intellectually wrestle with aspects of our faith. Some of us spiritually wrestle with life challenges
and we wonder why God allows certain hardships to occur in our lives. Some of us wrestle with certain aspects of who
God is, or what God has done. Many of us
wrestle with questions about God and our faith.
Many Christians believe that we
should never wrestle with God. Instead
of wrestling with matters of Christian faith or difficult challenges in our
lives, they believe that we should simply accept Church doctrine with a simple
faith and trust that God knows best. That
is, we should simply trust with a blind faith and avoid having to wrestle with
God.
However, the story of Jacob suggests that it is appropriate to wrestle
with God. Indeed, sometimes God may
challenge us to a wrestling match because God thinks it will be good for us, as
evidenced by God challenging Jacob to wrestle.
The “take home” point of this
story, then, is that when he wrestled with God, Jacob emerged with a stronger
faith and a special blessing from God.
Basing my conclusions on this story of Jacob, I will affirm the
goodness of wrestling with God’s challenges.
And, I will share some stories of myself and others who have wrestled
with God and emerged—as Jacob did—with a stronger faith and special blessing
from God.
I encourage you to attend our
weekend services at Meriden UMC this week, in order to hear about how Jacob and
others have wrestled with God, in some form, and been strengthened and blessed
in the process. Our church is located at
the corner of Main and Dawson Streets in Meriden, Kansas. We have two worship services each weekend:
Ø Our
contemporary service starts at 6 pm on Saturday evenings.
Ø Our
classic service starts on at 10 am on Sunday mornings.
Everyone is welcome and accepted because God loves us all.
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