Wrestling With God
- R.C. VanLandingham
- Mar 2, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 3, 2023
This is Day 8 of my 40 day Lenten Blog.
Abraham's son Isaac married a woman named Rebekah and had twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Esau and Jacob can be compared to the Marvel characters Thor and Loki. Perhaps the Norse people got the idea for the gods from the stories of Esau and Jacob.
The two brothers fought from the time they were in Rebekah's womb and the Lord told her that she had two nations fighting in her belly. Though twins, Esau came out first and was therefore the oldest. Jacob came out holding on to Esau's heel. God told Rebekah that the older would serve the younger, which was unheard of in those days.
Like the character Thor, Esau was a strong hunter and warrior--a man's man, covered in hair and the delight of his father Isaac. Jacob was more like Loki--a soft momma's boy who succeeded not by his strength but his cunning and trickery. And like Loki, Jacob is the villain of this story. At least at the beginning.
One day when Esau came in from hunting, Jacob was making some pottage, basically lentil soup. Esau was very hungry as he had not eaten while out hunting and asked Jacob for some of the soup. Instead of sharing with his brother, or even trading it for something of equivalent value, Jacob insisted that he would give his brother some soup only in exchange for Esau's birthright. As the first born, Esau's birthright was to become the master of Isaac's house when Isaac passed away and to receive the lion's share of the inheritance. Seems like a terrible trade for lentil soup.
Nevertheless, Esau agreed to the trade and gave up his birthright to his younger brother for soup. I don't want to put everything on Jacob's shoulders. Esau clearly did not value his birthright enough (this is analogous to us trading our birthright of eternity with God for the temporary delights of this world). But the trading of the birthright wasn't really completed until Isaac gave his blessing. For Isaac, not Esau and Jacob, would name the one who was to be lord over his house when he died.
At the urging of his mother, Jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing that Isaac had intended to give Esau. When Isaac was quite old and mostly blind, he told Esau to go out and hunt some game and then make him a meal with it. After he had eaten, Isaac promised to give his blessing to Esau, making Esau the lord of Isaac's house.
While Esau was out hunting game, Rebekah prepared a meal for Isaac and then dressed Jacob in Esau's clothes and attached the skins of goats to Jacob's arms and neck so that he would feel hairy like Esau to the touch. She told Jacob to pretend to be Esau and get the blessing from his blind father. Jacob did as his mother told him and Isaac gave his blessing to Jacob, making Jacob lord over his brothers. When Esau found out what had happened he was enraged and vowed to kill Jacob. Jacob smartly fled.
One night, while on the run, Jacob fell asleep and had a dream of a ladder that was set up on the Earth and the top of it reached into Heaven. Angels were climbing up and down the ladder and then the Lord spoke to him saying, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac." Then the Lord promised to give to his descendents the land that Jacob was on, and promised to be with him and always return his descendents to the land.
When Jacob awoke he said to himself, "Surely God is in this place and I did not know it. How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven." So Jacob set up a stone as a pillar to be the house of God, anointed it, and called the place Bethel.
Jacob went to the house of Laban and fell in love with his daughter, a beautiful girl named Rachel and asked to marry her. Her father made Jacob work for him for seven years before he could marry the girl. After the seven years, Jacob was married but when he lifted the girl's veil he found that it was not Rachel he had married but her older sister Leah. Rachel's father had tricked him just as Jacob had tricked his own father. So Jacob had to work another seven years to marry Rachel.
When his 14 years service were up and Jacob married Rachel, he sought to return to his homeland and face his brother Esau. As they neared Esau, Jacob sent his family across the stream away from him. And when Jacob was left alone, "a man wrestled with him until the break of day." Jacob refused to give in and the man touched his hip putting it out of joint. But still Jacob would not release the man until he blessed Jacob.
The man asked his name, and when Jacob replied the man said, "Your name shall no more be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." The man refused to give his own name, but blessed Jacob. And Jacob named the place Peniel saying, "For I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved."
Jacob's wrestling with the man (whom some believe to be God and others an angel) is symbolic of Jacob's struggle to remain faithful to God while battling temptation from the devil. It is also symbolic of our struggles to persevere in prayer despite the devil's constant attempts to get us to stop. Prayer is a battle, and "the 'spiritual battle' of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer." (CCC 2725).
In this scene Jacob perseveres and God blesses him and renews His promise to him. Despite Jacob's sinfulness, selfishness, and deceit, God still keeps His promise. God knows the hearts of all men, but sometimes He has to wrestle with them for a long time before the men will come around. Jacob was a stubborn, selfish man, but God took him as His own and blessed the world through him anyway. I thank God every day that He doesn't give up on us too easily.
As we will see tomorrow Jacob will have twelve sons who will beget the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
R.C. VanLandingham is a Catholic homeschool dad just trying to make it through this life and into the next! He has written a Christian children's fantasy series about a boy named Peter Puckett!
Comments