Message: It seems I’m stuckin Genesis
lately but I can’t help but follow this interesting storyline. If you remember
back to where Jacob received the stolen blessing, his father said that he would
be his brother’s master. When he blessed Esau he also told Esau that he would
serve his brother… UNTIL the day he would decide to break the yoke. After he went
on his own rebellion to marry the women his father didn’t want him to marry we
don’t hear anything further about him. We don’t know what went down with Esau
or whether he ever decided he wanted to be free from the bondage. It seems like
there is an injustice going on because God honors all of the blessings promised
over Jacob and he prospers even under a crooked master. Now suddenly Jacob is
anticipating seeing his brother and several times refers to Esau as “my master”
and to himself as “his servant”. He is wealthy from all of the blessings he
stole but can’t enjoy any peace from it. He separates his household into
separate camps in fear of a possible attack and sends gifts ahead hoping to win
over his brother. This is when he ends up in a camp alone and he wrestles with “a
man” in an unusual encounter which is later described as him being face to face
with God. Jacob demands a blessing and refuses to let go until he gets it. I
find this interesting because he has already been blessed right? He received so
much blessing that I don’t know what else he could possibly ask for, but he was
a fraud and he knew it. The “man” responds by asking Jacob his name. Not
because his fraud wasn’t already known, but to me this looks like a critical moment
of honesty and acknowledgment. Kind of like an addict who finally lets go of
denial and acknowledges the truth about what he is doing. This seems important
because although he was receiving the blessings he stole, he couldn’t really
thrive because he was carrying guilt and fear from the dishonesty. He must have
felt like an imposter in spite of the blessings. After this the “man” changes
his name from Jacob (which means “the deceiver”) to “Israel”. Then he blesses him in his own name.
Application: Since I went on with so much detail
on message portion I’m going to skip to the application. My personal application
of this is to ask myself the hard questions. The ones that question my motives
and force me to be honest with myself so that I can be healed!
