Genesis 32:22–30

[Jacob] got up that night and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. ²³He took them and sent them across the stream, and he also sent his possessions across. ²⁴Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man there until daybreak. ²⁵When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the socket of his thigh, and the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled. ²⁶The man said, “Let me go. It’s daybreak.” Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷Then he said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” ²⁸Then he said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.” ²⁹Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Why do you ask what my name is?” Then he blessed him there. ³⁰Jacob named the place Peniel, because he said, “I have seen God face-to-face, and my life has been spared.” (EHV)

When I was a kid, the local independent UHF TV station showed so-called “professional wrestling” on Saturdays. It was less fancy back then. In fact, it was downright hokey. Before Jesse Ventura, Mr. T, and Hulk Hogan came along, we had “The Crusher,” “Dick the Bruiser” and “George ‘Scrap Iron’ Gdasky.” It was fake, but fun.

Then there’s real wrestling. High school, college and Olympic wrestling is serious sport! It’s a very athletic activity. Prayer can be very athletic, too! Just think how it caused Jesus to sweat droplets of blood in Gethsemane. On Wednesday in Bible Class, we saw that Moses spent 40 days face down on the ground praying the Lord to forgive Israel for the Golden Calf incident.

Back to so-called professional wrestling, they say one of the “wrestlers” is ordered to let the other one win. When Jacob wrestled with God, something similar happened. God intentionally let Jacob win. He also wants us to “Wrestle with God” and often enough, He lets us win!

Jacob’s Character Development

[Jacob] sent [his family] across the stream, and he also sent his possessions across. ²⁴Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man there until daybreak.

Twenty-one years earlier, Jacob had had a dream. He saw a ladder between earth and heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending on that ladder. He named the place, Beth-el (house of God) because, he said, “this is none other than the house of God…. The gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17).

At the time, Jacob was a fugitive, on the run from his brother, Esau, who had sworn an oath to kill him. That was because Jacob had connived with his mother to steal Esau’s inheritance.

Now he shouldn’t have had to, of course. His father Isaac had clearly been told by God to pass on the inheritance to Jacob, whom God had declared to be the next in line as forefather of the Savior. But instead of relying on God to make it all work out, Jacob and his mother conspired to ‘help God out’ by fooling Isaac—blind, elderly man that he was—into blessing Jacob and thinking it was Esau, who was his favorite boy. (Yeah—about that: Esau and his wife Rebekah had foolishly played favorites with their sons—but that’s another story!)

The result was Jacob got the blessing God wanted him to have, but his brother Esau vowed to kill him—and would have done it! So Jacob fled to Lebanon to the ancestral home in Haran, never to see his dear mother alive again.

For 21 years he lived in exile, during which God blessed him abundantly with family and wealth. Now, all these years later, Jacob was returning home. During those 21 years he’d learned a lot. He’d been cheated repeatedly by his uncle Laban, in much the same fashion that he had learned to cheat as a child. On the receiving end during all those years, God had matured Jacob into a much less rash, much more forgiving, much more faithful man of God. God programmed him to live up to the role of Patriarch. He was now “Jacob 2.0.” He was ready for God to rename him Israel.

But this night, Jacob was scared. He was about to meet the brother who had vowed to kill him. But it was time. He must return home to the promised land. He’s next in the line of the Savior and God had connected all His promises of salvation with the land He promised to Jacob’s grandpa Abraham.

He wanted to return too. After all, his mother had died but his father was still alive. He wants to see him again. Nor does he want to be alienated from his brother forever. It’s worth the risk, he’s concluded—but not without second thoughts, this night of our text. What if his brother still wants to kill him? In fact, scouts he sent out have reported that Esau is on his way to meet him with a whole company of strong, scary-looking men.

So Jacob sends all his people and possessions on ahead of him, divided into two camps so that if one group gets wiped out, the other may still escape. As night settles in around him—alone for the first time at night in 21 years—Jacob has these and a million other things running through his mind as he lies down to rest. He tosses and turns. He prays and prays. Suddenly the One to Whom he is praying is there, and literally wrestling with him. ²⁴Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man there until daybreak. ²⁵When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the socket of his thigh, and the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled. ²⁶The man said, “Let me go. It’s daybreak.” Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The wrestling match continues all night, during the course of which Jacob was allowed to actually see the face of the 2^nd person of the Trinity and live!

There was a time when Moses asked to see God’s glory, and the Lord answered: “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  ²⁰ But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:19-20).

But Jacob did get to see the face of the preincarnate Christ. ³⁰Jacob named the place Peniel, because he said, “I have seen God face-to-face, and my life has been spared.” Jacob recognized that the “Man” who let him pin Him in a wrestling match was God Himself. He recognized what an extraordinary act of grace it was that that Man, Jesus himself, had actually, graciously, miraculously allowed him both to prevail and to live to tell about it! Jacob truly knew Grace with a capital “G” firsthand that night!

The Unnamed Angel of the Lord

Yes, Jesus Himself! In the Old Testament, God revealed His name as “Yahweh, the Lord.” And He revealed Himself and the meaning of His holy Name in Exodus 34: “‘The Lord, the Lord, (Yahweh, Yahweh) the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:6-7).

He commanded His priests to put His name on God’s people as a blessing: “Tell Aaron and his sons, This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:  “The Lord bless you and keep you;  the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;  the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” So they will put My Name on the Israelites, and I will bless them” (Numbers 6:23-27).

God further commanded “You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain.”

But that night, after the long, drawn-out wrestling match, when Jacob asked for His name, He responded simply, “Why do you ask what my name is?”  In the Old Testament, on special occasions, the Malach Adonai—the Messenger or Angel of the Lord—appeared and interacted with men, such as when He came to Abraham and announced His decision to destroy Sodom, after Abraham had fed Him. That is the preincarnate Christ, the 2^nd person of the Trinity, Who Himself would later be made man and be born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus would later say, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58), and here He was, wrestling with Jacob—the forefather of the children of Israel!

So why didn’t He answer? Why did He remain unnamed? Because it wouldn’t have fully made sense to Jacob. And because God didn’t want to give the devil a “heads up.” Instead, the devil would have to cringe for the next 1,800 years at every single baby born into the promised line, always wondering “is this the one who is going to destroy my power, undo death, and redeem the world from their sins?”

When the time had fully come, Jesus did not remain unnamed, of course. When Gabriel appeared to Mary, he said, “you are to give him the name Jesus—Y’shua, Yahweh saves—because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

That Name makes sense only to those who know His story and believe. That Name above all names has been put on you through baptism.  The Book of Revelation says, “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.  They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Revelation 22:3,4).

We, Too, Wrestle with God

Throughout this difficult life, we Christians wrestle with God, just like Jacob did. God may not wrench our hips, (although you might think so watching some of us walk). To some He lets arthritis come, or some other malady. He lets us wrestle with bills, tough decisions in regard to our children or jobs, difficult thoughts regarding His Kingdom and our place in it. Whatever you wrestle with, God is letting you struggle and fight for the same reason He wrestled with Jacob—not just that night, but all the 21 years preceding that night. God wants to change you. He wants to develop your character and your faith. He wants to turn you from a Jacob into an Israel—and that takes struggle and time!

But take note! The Angel of the Lord let Jacob pin him—wonder of wonders! Jacob said: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Then, Angel of the Lord said to Jacob,“What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” ²⁸Then he said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.”

Jesus lets us pin Him, too, because He is our gracious and compassionate Savior. He died for us. He paid for our sins. He earned eternal life for us. He wants only to strengthen us and get us through the journey safely by faith, until we reach our promised land of heaven. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

If we hold onto Jesus in faith and pray like Jacob, He will not refuse us. He will make whatever difficulties we live through and whatever concerns we are praying about become a blessing for us—guaranteed! Jacob pinned the Angel of the Lord—Christ Himself—to the ground, just like the woman in our Gospel pinned the unjust judge to the wall. We, too, can and must hold God to His promise to take all our cares and anxieties off our backs and onto His! He will keep His promise to make all things work out for our good, just as He did for Jacob.

As He renamed Jacob Israel, we should expect that He who gave us a new name—a Christian name in baptism—will give us an eternal name in heaven. He himself has promised: “To him who overcomes, I will give … a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” So keep wrestling with God in prayer: “Dear God, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”He will let you “win” and He will daily and richly bless you. Amen.