During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent over his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until dawn began to break…
– Genesis 32:22-24
When I first received this assignment, I wondered why God would ask me, Jacob, to write to you during Advent. I’m not exactly your typical Advent character. Usually people want to hear about Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi, or one of the other heroes of the Nativity story. Not only am I historically distant from those events, I’m nobody’s hero. Maybe that’s why…maybe God wants you to hear from someone who isn’t a hero. Someone who might even be a little like you.
Many of you know the basics of my story. I was born second in my family, having lost a nine month race with my twin brother Esau by mere seconds. I hated being second, even from birth apparently, so much so that I entered the world grasping my brother’s heel in an effort to overtake him. That’s how I got my name: Jacob means, ‘he usurps.’ It also means, ‘he deceives,’ or ‘he finagles.’ Yep. That’s me. A usurper, a deceiver, a finagler. About as far from a hero as you get, I suppose.
I lived up to my name early and often, eventually conniving my way into possession of Esau’s birthright and blessing, which by custom were his as the firstborn. The latter I gained by tricking my sick and blind father into thinking I was Esau. Pretty bad, huh? Not that it bothered me at the time. Again, I never liked second place, and I had always stood there in my father’s eyes. His greater love was for Esau, probably because he reminded him of his estranged brother Ishmael. It was unfair. Wrong. I figured I was entitled to set things right.
There were consequences of course. When Esau found out what I’d done, he consoled himself with thoughts of murdering me. I guess I didn’t blame him, but I wasn’t about to let him put his dark fantasies into action. So I high tailed it from my father’s lands to find a wife in the land of my ancestors. And that’s when the first truly significant thing happened to me.
Stopping for the night near the town of Luz, I had the most remarkable dream. I saw stairs reaching to the heavens, with angels going up and down. I’d never imagined that heaven and earth were so close. From the top of the stairs I heard the voice of God for the first time. ‘I am Yahweh,’ he said, and spoke of the promises made to my grandfather Abraham, which now, he said, fell to me: land, descendants as numerous as the dust, blessing for the whole world. Then he said, ‘I am with you Jacob, and will protect you wherever you go. One day, I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.’ Quite a promise, huh? To think that God would bestow such a promise on the likes of me.
With the promises of God in my back pocket, I went to Haran, where long story short, I continued my finagling ways. For twenty years I built quite the shepherding business, and along the way picked up two wives, two servant wives, and eleven children. Then one day, I heard God’s voice again, telling me to go home, and reminding me that he would be with me. On the one hand, I was glad for an excuse to leave my father-in-law Laban, who besides me, was the biggest finagler I ever met, but on the other, well, what if Esau still wanted to kill me? I’d like to tell you that I left for home because I believed God’s promise, but honestly, it had more to do with my desire to get away from Laban. I was half eager, half scared out of my sandals as I made my way across the desert sands.
Along the way, God sent angels to meet me, further assurance of his protection. But even so, I wasn’t exactly what you would call confident in my faith. I was really limping along in it. So imagine my terror when the messengers I had sent to convince Esau I was coming in friendship came back with the news that Esau was on his way in the company of an army of 400 men. What did I do? I prayed. I begged for deliverance. I reminded God of his promises. I tried my best to believe in them myself. And then, proving I did not, I sent more messengers ahead, this time with cattle, goats, sheep, and donkeys as gifts for my brother, hoping these might appease his wrath. My family and I stayed behind, waiting for news. Eventually, I sent them across the river too. And that’s when God came near.
He didn’t just stand atop a stairway this time. HE CAME NEAR. In my most desperate moment. My finagling ways had finally caught up with me. I was alone, ruminating over the course of my life, the things I’d done, the things I might have done differently. Doubting God’s promises. I mean, seriously, why would he ever protect a guy like me? It’s funny really, how God meets us where we are. There I was, wrestling with my faith, so God came to wrestle with me. I guess it was the only way to get my attention.
So there we were, rolling in the mud of the Jabbok from dusk till dawn. I fought him with all I had, something, I suddenly realized, I had been doing all my life. And then, in a beautifully poetic moment, knowing he had not prevailed over me by conventional means, he wrenched my hip. Sometimes, you see, when we won’t listen to God, he does something drastic to get our attention. As one of your poets, Michael Card, has said, ‘pain is [sometimes] the path to blessing. Love will fight us to be found.’ Well, mission accomplished. I shouted, ‘I won’t let you go until you bless me!’ I begged to know his name. He just smiled and said, ‘why do you want to know my name?’ And I remembered he’d already told me long ago, at Luz: Yahweh. The God who had already blessed me. And right there, close as breath, he blessed me again. I walked the rest of my life with a limp, a reminder of the night when God came near. A night when God condescended to roll in the mud, to get dirty, just to reach a finagling doubter like me.
The morning after, I met my brother. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Esau greeted me with pure grace. All had long since been forgiven. We both wept like children, I more than he. I told him, barely able to get the words out, that seeing his face was like seeing the face of God. And so it was.
But what does this have to do with you, dear reader? Well, you’re here reading my story in the season of Advent. Celebrating something that, if you haven’t quite made the connection, isn’t all that different from my night at the Jabbok: the time when God came near. Perhaps you wonder if that story is for you. Perhaps, like me, you doubt God would ever take up with the likes you. Maybe your past isn’t as bad as mine, but it might be bad enough. Or maybe you have trouble believing God’s promises. You’ve sensed God in his heaven, heard his still small voice, and yet, struggle to believe. Maybe you’ve been wrestling with belief your whole life. I want you to know, that all of that is the reason why God came near at Christmas. It is the reason why he went so far as to come into our world, to roll in its mud, to get dirty. Sometimes you see, God has to do something unconventional to get our attention. Sometimes, he has to meet us where we are.
This Christmas, know that he has done this for you. Whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done. You may be limping right now, but trust me, you are loved and blessed beyond imagining.
You are the reason that God came near.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Jacob
Author’s note: Looking this over, I suspect that there are echoes of a couple of old sermons by Jurgen Moltmann and Max Lucado latent in this monologue. I have not intentionally quoted them, but it is right that I give credit and thank them for their inspiration.