The Limping Man of God

Pastor Joe Fuiten, August 3, 2003

 

Genesis 32:22-32 Page 25

1 Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. 2 When Jacob saw them, he said, "This is the camp of God!" So he named that place Mahanaim. 3 Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. 4 He instructed them: "This is what you are to say to my master Esau: 'Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. 5 I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.'" 6 When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, "We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." 7 In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. 8 He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape." 9 Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,' 10 I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. 11 Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. 12 But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'" 13 He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau: 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16 He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds." 17 He instructed the one in the lead: "When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?' 18 then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.'" 19 He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: "You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. 20 And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.'" For he thought, "I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me." 21 So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp. 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. 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, 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.

 

Something tremendous happened here.  At the very least a man had his name changed.  But that name still dominates the pages of every newspaper in the world nearly 4,000 years later. Jacob became Israel. This was clearly the start of something historic, even eternal, that went far beyond a change of a man’s name.  Jacob wrestled with God and not only lived to tell about it but was transformed by it.  I would like to relate the story and draw from it lessons which I hope will speak to you in your struggle with yourself and with God.

Let’s begin with what actually happened leading up to this moment on the banks of the Jabbok.  Jacob cheated his brother out of the family inheritance.  Now, after 20 years of hiding from Esau and serving his uncle Laban, Jacob is returning home.  In many ways they have been good years.  He has assembled a small fortune in livestock and possessions.  He has wives, children, and a special touch that made good things happen.  He really had everything a man could want except his brother’s forgiveness.  He left with a death threat ringing in his ears.  Now the twin brother who uttered that threat was approaching with a small army of 400 men.  Tomorrow they would meet.

Jacob, whose name literally means trickster, supplanter, cheater, one who takes you by the heel, was thinking and praying like crazy.  He sent a series of gifts ahead of him.  First, he sent two hundred female goats with twenty male goats.  Then came two hundred ewes and twenty rams.  Then he sent thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.  They came in a series of waves. Each gift designed to evoke goodwill.

Finally, at the ford in the Jabbok River, he sent across his family and personal possessions.  In the end only he was left and it was night. Why did Jacob choose to be alone on what might have been the last night of his life?  At the foundation of everything there is this moment.  We are alone with no supports and it is night.  In some respects it can seem like the end, the last meal before execution.  It is that way with all leadership.  First we are by ourselves.  Then we are alone with God.  In the end, God’s purposes are achieved.  It is important to remember that nights at the Jabbok are not the end, but the beginning.

You might be listening to me today and feel that you are by yourself on a dark shore in a desolate place.  Don’t be so sure of your imminent demise.  I spoke to our Pastors and Board at the Pastor—Board retreat recently and talked about three levels of leadership.  First we are component leaders.  We lead some small piece of the overall work.  Some rise above that to be Cathedral contributors.  What they do affects or contributes to the whole organization.  Then there are Cathedral leaders.  These are the people that give shape to the whole organization.  I asked them to aspire to be a Cathedral leader.  What I have learned is that leaders often have to go through nights on the Jabbok before they become Israel.  Even though it is night, they become the defining moments of their new life.  This is what it was for Jacob.

Almost certainly he looked to the Judean hills some 20 miles to the southwest and remembered the night when God visited him at Bethel.  His prayer clearly recalls what God had said to him there.[1]  In Hosea 12:4 that prophet was more direct when he said that Jacob wept and begged for God’s favor.[2]  Without any self-consciousness he literally cried.  He cried out to God and was not at all ashamed to ask for God’s help.  He wanted God to remember all that he had said to him at Bethel so he echoes that encounter with God.    .

 

9 Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,' 10 I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. 11 Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. 12 But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'"

 

            As he is praying this prayer he has a mysterious visitor.  A “man wrestled with him until daybreak.”  Hosea says he was "the angel" (12:4) suggesting it was the second person of the Trinity, Jesus.  Jacob asked who he was, but the mysterious visitor didn’t answer.  He really didn’t need the answer because he knew.  Even though he seemed to be holding his own against his opponent, it was obvious the man wasn’t really giving it his all.  He wasn’t applying more pressure than Jacob could bear, nor testing him beyond what he could endure.  He always seemed to leave an opportunity for escape.

Jacob was wrestling with God.  He was not wrestling against God or against his will.  In fact he was contending for the will of God. He was only asking God to fulfill his promise, the promise he had made to him twenty years earlier as he was fleeing for his life.  Now he is returning and his mind is returning to that night in Bethel.  Jacob is wrestling for the fulfillment of a promise.  If he dies, he fails.  The promise will be cut short.  As he understands what is at stake and as he begins to comprehend who is with him, he wrestles with this mysterious and sudden visitor.  It is not truly a physical battle or a contest between equals.

            In the end, all it took was his simple touch to jerk Jacob’s hip out of its socket.  Even with that, Jacob did not give up.  Continuing to hang on to the man he asked for the blessing.  He asked for the fulfillment of a promise.  “Then (the man) blessed him there.” (v29)

            After the fight he named the place Peniel, explaining, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

            What was the blessing?  Certainly it was immediately felt.  The next day instead of a vengeful brother he found forgiveness and a warm embrace.  Jacob was astounded.  He told his brother, "For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably" He could see the face of God in what was happening.  But the blessing went far beyond the momentary answer. 

Out of the wrestling with God came a nation.  Having received the blessing, he was able to pass it on to his 12 sons, who founded the twelve tribes of Israel.

The blessing that comes from the wrestling with God is not just for us but also for the generations that follow.

I have always wondered about the limp?  The rest of his life he had it.  It was certainly not malicious.  I think of it as like Paul’s thorn in the flesh.  It was something that reminded Jacob of his vulnerability and that the good that happened was not purely from his own strength.  When he faced his twin brother, he could not rely upon the strength of his legs, because he limped.  He had to rely upon something else.

Virtually every man or woman of God will walk with that limp.  There will be something, somewhere that God allows so that our humanity will be apparent to all but especially to ourselves.  Our limp reminds us that the power belongs to another.  If we are blessed, it is not for ourselves alone or from ourselves alone.  It is from another and for another.  It is true that there is “power in weakness” and “weakness in power.”  We understand the cross as one of those “power in weakness” moments.  We can think of this moment for Jacob as the “Magnificent Defeat.”[3]  Jacob prevailed but also limped.  Both were part of what God had for him.

 

 

 

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.