Jake The Snake Wrestles With God

Jacob is reminded of this by the pain that shoots up and down his leg as a reminder for the rest of his life.

Jacob’s arrogant front collapses. He desperately reaches out. And God, being the great God of compassion, forgiveness, and love, reaches back to Jacob; even to arrogant Jacob.

Jacob is blessed.

The God who moments before had crippled him and who could have very easily squashed him like a fly, now blesses him. The God who had wrestled with Jacob, now walks with Jacob through life and wrestles for Jacob.

"I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

Jacob realized the height of his arrogance and pretention. And with great relief and gratitude he acknowledges that he had been spared through God’s gracious goodness, when all he deserved was to have been crushed thoroughly and completely. and yet, wonder of wonders God had gotten down on his hands and knees and loved that independent, shifty, scheming little arrogant speck of a person. And He LOVED him and blessed him!

And God did it in a most strange way. He had sent his messenger in human form to wrestle with Jacob on his level, and He finally to get through to Jacob.

So, with that Jacob is able to head back to the camp and onwards to the meeting with Esau. He’s disabled now. Weakened by his encounter with God’s power. But strangely, he is also now much stronger - stronger because he leans on God’s power. Jacob experiences the truth later expressed by Jesus:

"He who loses his life for my sake will find it."

The truth expressed by the Apostle Paul: "the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength."(1 Cor 1.25)

And there’s the good-news that reaches out to us this morning. We, like Jacob, may have seen ourselves as being very good at lining things up for ourselves; at beating the odds; at overcoming whatever anyone could throw at us.

But today, like Jacob, we are face to face with a God that towers over us. We face a God who could crush us, but a God who can also bless. God has come down to interact with us as well. Only this time it’s not through an angel of God. This time it is God himself. It’s Jesus, God the Son who comes down and lives on our level.

Jesus became human. He wrestled with life and with sin as a human. He faced the devil as a human. And he WON! Therefore as the victorious one he wrestled out from his heavenly Father a blessing for each and every person that is willing to cling to him and say, "I need you. I will not let you go until you bless me!"

The amazing thing that Jacob’s story illustrates is that, whatever our past, whatever our previous priorities, when we come to Jesus and confess our weaknesses to him, it will be his strength that comes to us and makes us strong for the wrestlings we will face yet in this life.

His forgiveness greater than our greatest sin.

His renewal broader than our deepest failing.

His life more secure than human death.

His hold on the future intense and sure.

His vision of the future and direction to it, clear and direct.

Into our highly competitive society comes the bible’s call to leave the striving after what the world values and drop to our knees and cling to the feet of Jesus.