Genesis 32:22-30 (NIV) 22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23After 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, 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."
And so it happens. A stranger appears out of nowhere, attacks Jacob for no apparent reason. The two begin a life and death struggle in the silence of the night until just before morning when it appears that Jacob is going to win. Suddenly, the stranger touches Jacob lightly on the hip, cripples Jacob for life and leaves him helpless. But Jacob still holds on. He holds on, not in force but in need. Jacob declares, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Unless you bless me. That is what he wants. That is what Jacob has needed all along no matter how hard he tried to strive and survive. And, ironically, that is what he had been promised form the beginning.
Is this story about Jacob a story about you and me? What is this blessing thing that was so crucial to Jacob? To be blessed is to know and feel and relish the sense of God’s care and commitment. It is to have God’s care and commitment so central to our life that it is what supports each day and shapes our life as the years go on.
The blessing is the Word of God repeated to Jesus at His baptism and at His transfiguration, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” It is something we need so that we can enjoy the really good gifts of life and we can endure and even grow from the hard parts of life. Could it be that in the struggle and striving of our life our opponent is no other than God? Hidden in the darkness of our striving is really our own stubborn self-will pitted against the love of God?
Is the story about Jacob a story about you and me? It is hard to know. Few of us even experience a need to be blessed by God. But maybe we are experiencing the struggle, the frustration, and are discouraged, beaten, and worn out. Would you consider that in the darkness of that struggle is God and God’s loving opposition? “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 25, 1997
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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