Genesis 28: 10 – 22
I wonder if you have had encounters with people that brighten up your day or bring back memories of past encounters with them if you meet again after several years apart. I’ve had two such encounters this week. Last Sunday we were at the Golden Wedding service in the cathedral. There was a man there I kept looking at because I was convinced I knew him but I couldn’t think from where. After the service all the couples who’d booked to go had their pictures on a screen. The name Nutter came on. The man was with his parents, Mr and Mrs Nutter. The name Paul Nutter came into my head. I went up to him.
“Are you Paul Nutter?” I asked. “Yes,” he said clearly not having a clue who I was. I said having worked out who he was. “I did your wedding when I was in Rutland.” His wife Sophie then appeared. That was twenty years ago.
They were there last Sunday supporting Mum and Dad who live in Wakefield and had come to Ripon for this service.
Then we were at the summer concert of Harrogate Choral Society who Lis sings with. Elizabeth Wearing was there. I’ve not seen her since 1988. Her husband Michael was the minister who started me on my preaching journey when he was Superintendent in Harpenden, where I grew up.
At the heart of our faith as Christians is encounter. And what is powerful about the Jacob story is that God will encounter not very nice people and reach out to them. Jacob is not very nice, he’s a cheat basically. Yet God’s grace is greater than human failing. All of us, even if we are vile, deserve at least a divine hearing. Jacob, means “grasper,” because when the twins were coming out of the womb Esau came out first but Jacob’s little hand came out right after Esau and grabbed ahold of his heel, like, “Come on back in here; I want to be first”). But the name “Jacob” can also mean, “deceiver,” and those two meanings pretty well sum up Jacob’s life.
Jacob has two encounters with God. One involves a ladder and the other a wrestling match. We will come to that later. Jacob had of a stairway to heaven.
You may remember that the rock band Led Zeppelin had their own version of a stairway to heaven, this time one that could be bought by someone who thought that everything that glittered was, after all, gold. There have been arguments about where the musical inspiration for the Led Zeppelin song came from, but it is clear that the idea of a stairway to heaven comes from this story of Jacob.
The idea of a stairway to heaven, though, does not begin with Jacob; it begins with the Babylonians and their ziggurats. These temples were built to be high towers, built with different levels, built with a staircase connecting each level with the one above. And so the dream arises from a built reality being transformed not only into a ladder upon which one may ascend, but one upon which descent is also accomplished – heaven comes to earth in Jacob’s dream.
And that is why in John’s gospel virtually the same words are used by Jesus to describe himself: ‘very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’.
In John’s gospel Jesus is portrayed as the ladder, the way, between heaven and earth, between time and eternity, between God and humanity.
Jacob has his dream at Bethel. It’s a significant place: it is mentioned more often in the Hebrew scriptures than anywhere except Jerusalem and Samaria. Bethel was visited by Abraham, who built an altar there, and returned there after disgracing himself in Egypt. Bethel was captured by Joshua after the Exodus, recaptured by the Canaanites, then taken again by the Israelite tribes. The Ark of the Covenant was housed for a time at Bethel before being taken to Shiloh, and later to Jerusalem. Bethel became the principal shrine of the northern Kingdom of Israel, a rival to Judah’s Jerusalem.
Bethel was an important place, a holy place – a place recognised as a place of God – but it had not always been so, at least not by everyone. ‘Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’’
Jacob goes to sleep quite unaware of where he is, quite unaware of the company he is keeping, quite unaware of where God is to be found. And in that, we might think, even today, he is not unusual. He is, probably, in the city of Luz – and it clearly has nothing remarkable about it. It is just a place pretty much like any other place – but, on his journey, fleeing, he thinks, from the wrath of his brother whom he has robbed and cheated, it is a place which seems to offer a place to pause, a place to catch his breath, a place to rest his head.
It is not even much of a place for that – a rock for a pillow; a rock, allegedly, long and flat, stretched out across an open space, the kind of rock that could, in the morning light, in the enlightened tomorrow, be raised on its end, and stuck in the ground to become a pillar, a monument, a marker of the discovery that, all this time, all unknown, this was God’s place.
And all this was unknown to Jacob – but not unknown to others. Luz, this city through which he was travelling, was already known to the Canaanites as Beth-el – the House of El, the chief Canaanite deity.
And now, like other holy shrines in other places at other times, it becomes adopted, embraced, re-packaged; so now it is not the House of El, but the house of God.
The name of ‘House of God’ is adopted and adapted from the Canaanites, but in the story Jacob gives it that other name as well – this is not only the house of God, this is also the gate of heaven. And this name takes us back to Babylon – back to the ziggurats, back to their stairways to heaven, back to the more correct name for Babylon – Bab-ilani, which means ‘gate of the gods’.
Jacob, we find, has gone to sleep in a nondescript place, a place which means nothing; maybe he knows it means things to other people, but it certainly means nothing to him. The traditions of others, the understandings of others, the places of others, do not, he thinks, ‘do it’ for him. His spiritual life, if he even thinks he has one, is not fed from these springs. It’s just a place to stop, a place to use, a place of passing convenience, but nothing of any importance – not to him. But he awakens to a different world, a world where he has been touched by a presence he had not previously suspected. It is a world where Jacob has to take seriously what has been special to others but has never before been special to him – and the traditions of Canaan and of Babylon are subtly brought in to the tradition of Israel in the person whose name Israel will later take.
The psalmist remember in Psalm 139 writes not of a God who is suddenly encountered in a special place, but of an omnipresent God, a God whose presence cannot be escaped anywhere, a God who is with us everywhere we go – from the womb to the tomb, from the highest place to the lowest. This is a God who knows us everywhere we go, and knows us before we are anywhere, knows us whether or not we know God, is interested in us whether or not we are interested in God.
Jacob may not have intended to stop at Bethel, but he did, and what may have been simply a night under the sky became an encounter with the true and the living God!
What did God say at Bethel?
God revealed Himself to Jacob by using the name Yahweh and then, God affirmed the faith of Abraham and Isaac. That would be a real blessing to me, knowing the God of my father and grandfather and who knows how far back it goes would speak to me personally.
We need to remember that very few people have ever experienced the joy of fellowship with God Himself, but it’s possible, and available, for everyone if we ask Him for it!
Third, God also confirmed the promise He had made to Abraham and Isaac. Part of that promise was that their descendants would be “. . . like the dust of the earth,. . .” but, Abraham had only one genuine son, Isaac, and we only read of two sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob. God’s ways are not our ways, and His timing isn’t the same, necessarily, as ours, but He will absolutely make good on every promise He's given.
Finally, the most important promise was that God affirmed He would always be with Jacob, and would bring him back to this land. Remember that Jacob left with the whole family in turmoil: Esau wanted to kill him, Rebekah wanted to protect him (one wonders how?), and Isaac sorely displeased when Jacob had deceived him. Now, Jacob was alone—we don’t read of anyone going with him on this “wife quest”—and he had no one to share his concerns with. No family, no servant, not even an animal: and yet, God promised He would always be with Jacob. When we, even now, walk with God, we are never alone!
What did Jacob do after he heard God speak?
When did Jacob become a believer? I don’t recall reading that “Jacob believed God”, as was said of Abraham. Was it here? Was it before? Was it later? Regardless, there was a time when Jacob came to what we could call “saving faith” and became a believer in the God of Abraham and Isaac. We can find at least some initial steps in the following items:
He stated clearly, first, that he didn’t know, or hadn’t realised, that God was there.
The second display of Jacob’s faith was the multi-part vow which he made. We’ll not spend much time there, but Jacob is basically saying, “All right, God, if You keep Your promise, then You will be my God and I’ll give a tenth to You”.
This is where the narrative stops. Jacob, meeting God at Bethel was a life-changing experience.
Have we met God? There is no need to find a literal “Bethel” or any other place that some may state is sacred, special, or anything else. If you have never met God before, you can do so any place, any time, when God speaks to you. The encounter whether it involves a ladder will be life changing.
20 years later, Jacob prepares to be reunited with Esau. In the hope that Esau will not attack him Jacob sends gifts ahead to placate Esau. Whilst waiting in the camp for the gifts to arrive with Esau, Jacob has another face-to-face encounter with God…
Genesis 32: 22 – 32
Jacob and his wives and sons cross the Jabbock river into Esau’s territory. This is where our reading picks up. Jacob is so nervous he can’t sleep. He sends his family across the river, and he’s left alone.
Except, it turns out he’s not alone. Instead, a man or a demon or an angel or something is there and they wrestle all night. Jacob—exhausted, nervous—hangs on until dawn. As the light dawns, his opponent realizes Jacob won’t give up, and he strikes him putting his hip out of joint. But still, Jacob won’t let him go. And here’s the interesting part of this strange story. His opponent asks him, “What is your name?”
Jacob knows what his name means. He knows what he’s done to get to where he is. He knows he’s cheated his brother, and his uncle.
He knows he’s spent his life taking what rightfully belongs to others. He knows what his name means.
And so does God, for it turns out that’s who Jacob has been wrestling. God knows how much Jacob deserves everything Esau seems about to give him. God knows who Jacob is, yet asks anyway, “What is your name?”
Jacob admits it. He answers, “Jacob.” It’s a confession. Knowing someone’s name symbolically gives you power over them, which is perhaps why the one who wrestles with him refuses to reveal his own name. Jacob makes himself vulnerable.
But instead of giving him the punishment he deserves, the Lord instead gives him a new name. Verse 28: “You shall know longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Jacob gets a new start. He’s held on all night, desperate for some hope, wrestling in the dark, and he gets his blessing.
My question is if he had to wrestle all night for God to bless him. Was all this even necessary?
Because God had already promised to bless him. His mother had already heard the promise that great nations would come from her sons.
But perhaps for Jacob to accept God’s blessing, he needed to have wrestled. It’s not until he stops wrestling and makes himself vulnerable that he is blessed.
Perhaps it’s not Jacob hanging on all night in this wrestling match, but God who is hanging on, refusing to abandon Jacob. Perhaps what looks like cheating—dislocating Jacob’s hip—is God saying enough is enough: Quit fighting and let me bless you. I wonder.
The name the Lord gives Jacob is “Israel,” which means wrestles with God. And of course, he does go on to produce a great nation. The descendants of Israel’s 12 sons become the 12 tribes of Israel. And throughout the Bible, Israel’s name makes sense, because the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, continue to wrestle with God.
So what is the good news in this strange story?
Perhaps the good news is that a trickster, a deceiver , can be redeemed.
Perhaps the good news is that God is willing to hang in there all night wrestling with you, if that’s what you want to do.
Perhaps this is an illustration of the promise that God doesn’t give up on you, and if God wants to claim and rename you and give you new life, that’s what God’s going to do, (even if it takes wrestling all night until you see the light).
Perhaps the point of this story is that all of us have times when we stay up all night wrestling with God, and that’s ok.
Wrestling with God, questioning God, struggling with God, even not recognising God is part of faith. Faith means persisting in trusting God through the wrestling.
The late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, wrote this in the Jewish Chronicle:
“The journey described in Genesis turns out to be unexpectedly complicated and fraught with setbacks. In a sense it continues till today. This is part of what makes Genesis so vivid. We can relate to its characters and their dilemmas. We are part of their world as they are of ours. No other literature has so contemporary a feel. This is where we came from. This is our journey.”
We need to see a ladder and we need to be prepared to wrestle a bit.
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