It’s Hard to Go Back
Genesis 32:22-32
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Sometimes it’s hard to go home. It was for Jacob. Jacob was headed home for the first time in twenty years. Twenty years is a long time. A lot can change. On the other hand, sometimes things might not have changed. That too can make it hard.
Going home means going back—old memories, old mistakes, old reputations. Sometimes people change while their gone. But the people back home don’t always know that. Back home, you’re still the same ornery little kid as before. To the neighbor ladies, you’re still that freckle-faced little boy with the cow-lick or the chubby little girl with braces. Maybe they only remember the obnoxious teenager who was forever getting in trouble. When you go home, you have to listen to all of those embarrassing stories over and over again.
For Jacob it was worse than that. He had made some mistakes. He had disappointed his dad. His brother hated him. Nobody liked him much. Jacob had left home to get away from all of that. Going away and starting over someplace else had seemed a lot easier than dealing with the mess he had made of his life.
I am reminded of the mother that Jerry Clower used tell about. One day some workman started re-roofing a large building not far from her house. A couple days later the youngest of her sixteen children wandered off. She looked and looked and finally found him. He had fallen in a fifty gallon vat of roofing tar. She reached in and pulled him out. As she drug him home by his shirt collar, she was overheard saying, “Boy, it would be a lot easier to have another child than to clean you up!”
For Jacob it had all started the day he was born, actually before. He was the youngest of twin boys. Everybody always reminded him how he and Esau used to fight all the time. Even before they were born, Rebekah said she could feel them wrestling with one another. When Jacob was born, he came out grabbing his brother’s heal as if they had been fighting to see who got to go first. That was one of those embarrassing stories he would have to hear when he went home.
His parent’s took these birth stories into account when they named him. They called him Jacob. He never knew for sure if they were trying to be cute, creative, or just mean. That Hebrew name meant grabber. As if that weren’t bad enough, his people used the same term for a cheater or swindler. Imagine growing up with a name like that. When your mom called you for supper or your friends wanted you to come out and play, it was “Hey, Thief, dinner’s ready” or “Can Liar come over?” On your first day in school, you have to say, “My last name is Isaacson. My first name is “Cheater.”
Maybe it was in an effort to make up for the name or maybe for some other reason, his mother always tended to take Jacob’s side. That only made matters worse. His brother not only teased him about his name. He also called him a “mamma’s boy.” As a result of all this, Jacob grew up with chip on shoulder. He was convinced that life had handed him the short end of the stick. He had something to prove. He became determined that nobody was going to take advantage of him and get away with it. As he grew up, Jacob grew into his name!
Jacob was always finding ways to get back at his brother. Most of it was child’s play. But not always! Once when they were teenagers, Jacob was helping out in the kitchen. Mama’s boy, remember! Esau came in from hunting. He was tired and hungry. I mean really hungry. He asked Jacob to fix him something to eat. “Sure,” Jacob had said, “but it will cost you.” “Anything! I have to eat something. You name the price.” “Okay,” Jacob told him, “I will cook you up a bowl of your favorite stew. But only if I get to be treated like the older brother.” I am not sure we can totally understand how it worked in their culture. A person’s word was his bond. Once said, it was done. Esau said “yes” and sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. Maybe his blood sugar was low. Maybe he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Esau lived to regret what he did. He would do his best to make sure Jacob regretted it too.
Years later, the sibling rivalry boiled over. Dad’s health had deteriorated. He was rapidly losing his sight. Mom convinced him that it was time to divide up the family farm between the boys. In that society, inheritances were handled differently than today. Everything was verbal. A father would call in his sons one by one. He would lay his hands on their heads and speak a word of blessing that conferred the appropriate inheritance on each. Once spoken, the arrangements were irrevocable.
When the day for the blessing arrived, Jacob and his mother cooked up a plan. Jacob disguised himself as his brother and tricked his nearly blind dad into giving him the blessing intended for his Esau. Isaac didn’t figure out what happened until after it was too late. Esau was furious. He even threatened to kill Jacob, brother or no brother.
Jacob knew Esau meant business. So did their mother. Rebekah thought Jacob should leave for a while. She suggested he could visit her brother and family who lived a few hundred miles to the north. Esau could cool off a bit. Jacob might even find himself a good wife while he was there. Jacob left. He took nothing but the clothes on his back. That was twenty years ago.
Maybe God has a sense of humor. Or maybe the Lord was giving Jacob some much needed lessons in the school of life. At any rate, when Jacob arrived in the distant land, he met his match. Jacob was just rookie at con games compared to his father-in-law to be. Jacob met the girl of his dreams soon after he arrived. Rachel was the younger daughter of a wealthy herdsman named Laban. When approached about giving Rachel in marriage to the kinsman from Caanan, Laban surprised everyone by agreeing even though it was customary for a girl to wed only after her older sisters had married. But first, Laban insisted, Jacob would have to work as his servant for seven years. Jacob was smitten. He agreed.
It wasn’t until the morning after his wedding night, seven years later, that Jacob realized his father-in-law had pulled a fast one. Laban switched daughters. He had Leah dawn the wedding veil and take her sister’s place. Jacob was furious. But like the blessing he had stolen from his brother, the words of marriage were irrevocable. The cheater had been cheated.
Jacob still loved Rachel and wanted to marry her. Multiple wives were a common practice in those days just as it is in much of the Middle East today. Laban agreed to a second wedding, this time to Rachel, but only if Jacob promised another seven years of labor. This time Jacob married Rachel first and then served Laban for the seven years. The better he came to know his swindler of a father-in-law, the more clearly Jacob saw himself. He didn’t like what he saw.
Jacob had planned to go home as soon as his fourteen years of service was up. But Laban convinced to him stay. He would pay him this time, he promised. Jacob stayed. After all, he didn’t really want to go home. He just wanted to get away from Laban. This time Jacob didn’t take any chances. He made sure everything worked his way. Six years later, Jacob not only had his wages, he had managed to gain control of the better part of Laban’s flocks.
Twenty years ago, Jacob had left home alone with nothing but the clothes on his back. Now he heads back with flocks that number in the thousands, scores of servants, and eleven sons. But it was still hard to go home. Would he be welcome? Would his parents accept his children? Would Esau try to make good on his twenty year old threat? Would he be accepted back as a grown man? Or would he still be little Jacob “the Liar?”
As he neared the border of his homeland, Jacob sent word ahead. It wouldn’t be good to surprise everybody after all of this time. His messengers return with word that his parents are overjoyed. Apparently his brother is too. Esau had headed out to meet him with band of four hundred armed men. “A security force to insure your safety,” the messengers suggest. Jacob doubts it. Four hundred men sound like more than security.
Jacob panics. In his distress he does something unusual. He prays. It is not that he never prayed. In fact, he had gotten pretty close to the Lord just after he ran for his life twenty years ago. But prayer had never been his first impulse. But alone, on the night before he goes home, Jacob prays. “God help me. I don’t deserve it, but help me.”
Did God hear his prayer? Will he rescue him? Jacob never did like uncertainty. There’s enough of the old Jacob still there that he determines to hedge his bets. He has to have a plan. He sends his messengers back with a gift for Esau. A little bribery couldn’t hurt. He then orders his herds and servants divided into two groups. If Esau attacks, maybe the second group can get away. He puts his family at the rear. The last group crosses the border just as the sun goes down. The next day, Jacob will be home—one way or another.
Jacob wades back across the river. He needs to be alone. Just as the darkness settles in, Jacob hears a noise in the brush behind him. Before he can reach his weapon, a man grabs him and throws him to the ground. What follows is hard to describe. Two figures wrestle. It is hand to hand combat, down and dirty as only wrestling can be. Jacob is fighting for his life. At first, he probably thought it was Esau or one of his men. At some point, he realizes that this is no mere man in whose grasp he found himself. Later, he would say he had wrestled with God. Hosea the prophet describes Jacob’s opponent as an angel (12:3-4). Maybe it was God in the form of an angel. However you describe it, Jacob was in the hands of God. He had prayed for God’s help. But this wasn’t what he had expected.
Obviously, God, or even his angel, could have easily handled the likes of Jacob with the flick of his finger, like we might a pesky mosquito. But he didn’t. Maybe it was like a father arm wrestling with his little boy. Dad can whip him any time he wants. But he doesn’t. He knows this is not about winning or losing. With hands locked in combat, a father can teach his boy about persistence, endurance, and character.
All night the two wrestle—Jacob and this God-Man-Angel. After hours of battle, the Mystery Man reaches down and touches Jacob’s hip. His hip slides from its socket. He winces in horrible pain. But still he doesn’t let go. “I won’t let go until you bless me,” he cries. For the first time in Jacob’s life he didn’t run away or try to con himself out of hard spot.
“I will bless you,” the Man says. “First tell me your name.” As if God didn’t already know! His name! A life time of memories flood his mind. Memories of teasing, of guilt, of shame. He had felt it every time he had to say his name as a child. Now this God-Man makes him say it again. Finally, he relents. “My name is Jacob!”
“Jacob, I will bless you just as you have asked. To you belong the blessings of your father Isaac and your grandfather Abraham.” That would have been enough. But the Lord wasn’t finished. “I have one more blessing. No longer are you Jacob, the deceiver. You will now be known as Israel—the man who wrestled with God.” With those words the God-Man was gone. Our text came over the horizon just as this happened. This was the day Jacob was to go home. He never made it. Instead, a man named Israel limped home in his place.
Twenty years before Jacob ran away. He thought he was leaving his problems behind. But like they always do, our real problems have a way of following us. We can blame our difficulties on circumstances, or our family, even our enemies. A new home, a new job, a new church, a new wife or new husband—that’s the secret to the good life. How many times have we heard that? Maybe said it? That makes about as much sense as trying to outrun your own shadow. The real problems of life are never OUT THERE. They are always IN HERE.
If we’re lucky we’ll learn what Jacob learned sooner rather than later. No one is ever free from their past mistakes until he or she wrestles with the spiritual issues of life. On the other hand, no matter who we are, how much of a dirty rotten scoundrel we’ve been, how far we’ve strayed, or how proud and self-willed we’ve been, when we want God’s blessing more than life itself, we will get it. Every time! Guaranteed!
That’s what Jesus meant when he said a person can’t enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again (Jn 3:3). It is also why the Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17).
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
