Jake the Snake Wrestles with God
By Pastor John Stensrud
Immanuel Baptist Church
Elgin, IL
October 1, 2000
If he was alive today, hi-tech head-hunters would be on the phone to him regularly. Better yet, he would be well-suited as a shifty-eyed used-car salesman.
I can just hear him say: Hi my name is Jacob from Clunker-Junker auto sales. We have beautiful previously owed, low mileage automobiles for no money down and payments that anyone can afford. No reasonable offer for one of my beauties will be turned down.
But we know better than that – we can see behind his sales pitch. He is out for number 1, himself only. He would be more than happy to sell you a car where the odometer has been tampered with and sawdust has been poured into the crankcase. He is the quintessential snake oil salesman.
Jacob, son of Isaac – let’s call him Jake the Snake was the sort of character that lots of used car businesses would love to have on their lots. Energetic. Lots of initiative, to the point of being aggressive. Not one to take "No" for an answer. If he had something in mind, he would go for broke to get it. The book of Genesis details his character and life for us.
Jacob was the second born of twins. He was delivered with his hand grabbing onto his brother’s heel, seemingly trying to pull Esau back so that he could get out ahead. In fact, the way he was born was a prophetic statement of what his life would be like. Jacob wanted desperately to win at all costs – preferably at someone else’s expense.
Jake the Snake deep down inside was a liar and a cheat. And he knew it. Nearly every time again he would open his mouth, he would find himself telling a whopping lie to cover up one of his shady deals.
Do you know who Jacob reminds me of? If you have ever watched “Leave It to Beaver,” you will remember the character named Eddie Haskell. Eddie Haskell would act like a perfect gentleman in front of Ward and June Cleaver but would act like a hood when he was hanging out with his friends. I loved the way he would try to play a con job with Mrs. Cleaver. “Oh Mrs. Cleaver, your Theadore is such a fine example of a young man.” Then the next moment, Eddie would get Beaver alone and call him a little creep. And so it was with Jacob or Jake the Snake.
He ended up spending his life running, twisting, getting out of one tight spot and quickly ending up in another. He had his own mother fooled – he wormed his way into becoming mama’s favorite son. Not only that, he swindled his brother, lied to his father, and has to run when his brother puts his name at the top of a hit list. His own brother wants to put him on ice – I mean he wants to kill him.
So he ends up at some relatives where he marries his cousin and begins a 20 year segment of his life cheating and being cheated by his father-in-law. Eventually he leaves and heads back to his father’s ranch.
His father-in-law gave him a dose of his own medicine and life becomes tough for Jake. He doesn’t make it any easier by concocting crazy schemes and shooting off his quick, double-talking mouth. He knows it. He can’t seem to get away from it.
But one thing Jake has going for him: no matter how tough the odds, no matter how bleak it seems, no matter who lines up against him, he’s determined to win at life. He won’t let anyone or anything get in his way. He’s going to win in this crazy game of life, FOR SURE!! If anyone gets in his way, he will run over them like a Mack truck.
The word was “if you were in Jake the Snake’s way then either you move aside, or get run over.”
Jake is now on the way home. Back towards the brother who had threatened to kill him. Back to the father he had cheated and lied to. While he’s on the way he has an experience that changes him forever. He’s getting closer to home and has been informed that his brother is approaching with 400 armed friends. It looks like the jig is up for Jake. The boom is about to be lowered. How in the world will he get himself out of this scene? It’s not fun and games when 400 men are looking for you and you have a sneaking suspicion that they’re mad.
We’re going to pick up the reading in Genesis at night time. Jacob is worried. Really worried. Scared spitless would be a better way of putting it. Afraid not only for himself, but also for his family and possessions that he has accumulated through the years through a variety of methods. His whole camp is asleep, but Jacob walks around. He CAN’T sleep. Could you if you were in his shoes? He has to find a way out of this latest predicament.
Let’s read what happens.
Genesis 32:22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maid-servants and his 11 sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok River. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." 27 The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered.
28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob or Jake the Snake for that matter, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." 29 Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
Jacob is by the Jabbok river which is in a mountainous area. The place where he has to cross the river is a very narrow deep canyon. A perfect place for an angry brother to pull off an ambush. Jacob develops a plan. Here is the plan:
1. get a head-start on his brother.
2. Wake up his whole camp and quickly send them across the Jabbok river in a daring nighttime maneuver. He knows the risks, a river crossing is dangerous in the dark, especially for the children and smaller animals. But it’s a no-brainer because of the alternative: being ambushed in the morning by 400 irate commandos.
3. Jacob takes the risk to get ahead and outmaneuvers the opposition.
4. Finally they’re all across. Jacob is the only one left behind. Like a good captain and leader he stayed until the last straggler was safely on the other side. Now he sits down to catch his breath. At that point that he meets a most formidable opponent.
Jacob sees a shadowy figure sneaking up behind him. He’s not sure who it is. An advance scout commando from his brother Esau? Maybe a local bandit trying to roll some of the stragglers from the Caravan and rob them? Who knows? And, as far as Jacob is concerned, who cares. One thing’s for sure. There’s no way anyone is going to mess up his plan now. He’s going to get this hairball. So he hides behind a bush, doubles back and tackles the man.
The wrestling match is on – Jacob versus Hulk Hogan. It was a desperate fight - maybe to the end.
We who have read the passage know who that man is. It’s not really Hulk Hogan or even Jesse Ventura. On the contrary it’s the angel of God, the messenger of God sent to represent him, to act with all divine authority and power. This man is God’s personal messenger. But Jacob doesn’t know that. And the angel doesn’t tell him who he is at first, either. Jacob finally meets his match.
All night they wrestle, and the angel is getting the better of him. But Jacob’s no geek himself, he was probably very strong from years of ranching with his father-in-law. The two men fight all night. But to Jacob’s credit he won’t give in. He never has yet, why should he give in now?
The angel sees that Jacob was not about to give up and so he pulls out all the stops, the angel has to resort to his supernatural powers given by God. He just touches Jacob’s hip. And Jacob collapses with a dislocated joint. And then Jacob realizes that this is no ordinary dude that he has been wrestling.
And the angel says, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." In other words, "Enough already, Jacob. Let’s call it quits. Get on with your plan. Do your thing. It’s time to move on. You’re a clever dude. You’re so smart. You’ve got all these great plans. If you think you can do it, go for it."
Jake the Snake suddenly meets something in his life that he is powerless over. Let’s put ourselves in Jacob’s place for a moment
1. Pain is shooting down his leg.
2. He’s trying to catch his breath after an all
night wrestling match.
3. His entire life is passing before his very
eyes.
4. He’s thinking about how he had always wanted
to make it big.
5. He remembers how he cheated his brother and
lied to his father to get the family blessing,
the rights to the family inheritance.
6. He remembers how he had cheated his father-in-
law to get the most possible possessions.
Do you remember the saying that came out sometime probably in the 1960’s Called “Looking out for Number One? Throughout his whole life it had always been "Jacob did this. Jacob did that."
Jacob is number one. There’s nothing that Jacob can’t do. Jacob is on the fast track to success. Totally self-centered and strong willed.
Now he’s face to face with an angel of God Almighty. He is staring at someone who just barely touched him in the leg and now his leg is disabled. If that’s what one touch can do, it wouldn’t take much for this supernatural being to turn him into mincemeat or a street pizza.
Jacob has met his match and he knows it. Suddenly he doesn’t feel so big or so strong anymore. His confidence goes up in smoke. His entire attitude and approach changes. He doesn’t want to go out and do his own thing anymore.
Things are different now. Jacob is a broken man. That’s the point where God can use him – that’s the point only where God can use us.
Psa 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Up to now Jacob had done fine on his own. When he needed a blessing he stole one through deceit. Now he needs a real blessing. No lying. No cheating. Only a desperate, clinging, crying prayer to God through his angel. "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
God, who once had been a take-him-or-leave-him, I-can-do-fine-with-him- or-without-him, sort of person to Jacob, suddenly becomes indispensable. Jacob realizes he can’t really make it without God.
Strong, smart Jacob realizes that however big he is, however strong he might be, however clever his scheming, however invincible he appears, there is One who stands greater than him.
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.
To reach for the very top, to the top of heaven with empty hands. Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling.
And then leave here with the promise that we won’t go alone. For the one who forgave, accepted, and wrestled with the double-crossing, back-talking, always cheating Jake the Snake (whose name has been changed to Israel which means that he struggled with God and with men and has overcome), in His sovereign grace, and indescribable, forgiving love will also go with us!
