The Third Sunday after the Epiphany – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Genesis 32:22-32

In Christ Jesus, who appeared to the faithful fathers of old to prepare them for His coming in the flesh to save the world, dear fellow redeemed:

When Jacob went to Haran to find a wife, the LORD promised him that his offspring would be “like the dust of the earth,” that He would be with him, and that He would bring him back to the land he came from (Gen. 28:14-15). Now Jacob was on his way back with his wives, children, and great possessions. He had left with nothing but a staff in his hand, and now he was a rich man. God had made good on His promise.

But Jacob was shaking with fear. He heard from a messenger that his brother Esau was coming toward him with four hundred men. Jacob knew that in the past, his brother Esau wanted to kill him for taking the family blessing. Twenty years had passed since then. Had Esau’s anger and hatred subsided over that time or had it only increased? Jacob implored God to deliver him and his family from Esau’s wrath. He prayed: “O LORD, You said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’ Please protect me and deliver me as You said You would” (Gen. 32:12).

Jacob knew that Esau would reach him the next day. He sent presents ahead of him hoping to appease his brother. Then during the night, he sent his family and all that he had across the stream, while he stayed behind alone in the dark. You know how active a mind can be in the middle of the night when you are anxious about something. Can’t sleep. Wide awake. Running some problem or conflict over and over again in your head. Imagining the worst. Despairing of any good outcome. That was Jacob. All he could picture was Esau coming at him with arrow ready or knife drawn. He imagined his wives and children under attack—all that he loved, destroyed, lost.

He prayed like he never had before: “Have mercy, O LORD, have mercy!” I’m sure you can relate. Perhaps you have not faced an immediate threat to your entire family like Jacob, but you have worried about a family member who was sick or injured. Or you have been at odds with someone close to you and couldn’t see how the situation would ever improve. Or you have felt threatened by an enemy and feared what harm he or she might do to you.

You prayed at those times. But your prayers were probably also mixed with some doubts. Will my loved one be okay? Will we be able to work through this conflict? Will I be safe? And as much as you might have asked God for help, you may have felt alone like Jacob, alone and in the dark, worried and fearful about what might be coming.

In Jacob’s anguish that night, he suddenly realized he was not alone. A stranger surprised him and started fighting with him. Was it Esau or one of Esau’s men? We aren’t told what Jacob was thinking, just that “a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.” Jacob poured all his worries and fears into this wrestling match. He felt that he was fighting for his very life! We don’t know how long this went on, but we do know that Jacob fought with all his might.

Jacob fought so desperately, that even when the Man dislocated his hip, he did not give up. With daylight coming on, the Man tried to get away, but Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.” A very strange request to make of someone threatening his life! But Jacob somehow knew this was no ordinary man. He perceived that it was the LORD he was wrestling with, the very LORD he had been begging for mercy. And so it was.

But why was the LORD fighting with him? Why was He acting like Jacob’s enemy instead of his Savior? Didn’t Jacob have enough troubles without the LORD piling on? Perhaps you can relate to this too. Have you ever had one bad thing happen after another, and you couldn’t help but ask, “Why God?” Or you felt like the times you tried to do what was right, you got punished for it.

You can rule out the idea that God is unable to help or is distracted by other responsibilities. Those things could only happen if God were small and only somewhat powerful, which is not the case. You can also rule out the idea that God has changed His mind about you and has turned against you, since that would go against His promise never to leave you or forsake you (Heb. 13:5). So why might it be that God would sometimes behave like your enemy, like He did with Jacob?

Could it be that He wants you to fight like Jacob did, to fight with a desperate faith? Think about the Canaanite woman crying out to Jesus for mercy for her demon-oppressed daughter. At first, Jesus didn’t answer her. Then He told His disciples He was sent only for the Israelites. Then when the woman knelt right in front of Him, begging, Jesus said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” It seems obvious that Jesus was telling her to go away, but the woman wouldn’t give up. She believed in Him. She declared that this dog would gladly accept the crumbs that fell from His table. And Jesus said, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire” (Mat. 15:21-28).

This teaches us that Jesus wanted to be caught. He wanted to be conquered by faith. We see this in the Holy Gospel for today from the leprous man who conquered Jesus by faith and was healed, and from the Roman centurion who faithfully brought the needs of his servant before Jesus. The same was true in the LORD’s wrestling with Jacob. He wanted Jacob to struggle with Him and pin Him down by faith. Hadn’t He already made a promise to Jacob? Why was Jacob so afraid? Why was he so worried? The LORD tested him, so Jacob would learn not to doubt, so He would learn to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

The LORD also wanted him to understand that the promise He made to him was bigger than blessings in his lifetime and even bigger than the multitude of people who would come from him. The promise was ultimately about the Savior who would come from his line, in whom “all the families of the earth [would] be blessed” (Gen. 28:14). Perhaps this is the blessing God repeated after wrestling with Jacob.

God operates in the same way with us. At various times in our life, He may seem to be ignoring us or even opposing us. This is because He wants to exercise our faith. He certainly isn’t trying to drive us away from Him. He wants us to recognize our weaknesses, so that we trust in His strength. He wants to teach us to let go of what we cannot control and instead cling tightly to His Word and promises.

Above all, He wants us to remember that the Savior He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did come. The LORD kept this Promise of all promises. Jacob thought he was alone in the dark, but the LORD was right with him, holding him in His everlasting arms. Jesus, on the other hand, truly was alone as He suffered in the dark on the cross, crying out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Jesus was forsaken because all your sin was piled on Him. He was getting the full wrath of God and the eternal punishment that you deserved. He was suffering for the times you worried about tomorrow, when you doubted God’s commitment to you, when you trusted your strength instead of His, when you neglected to thank Him when He saved you from your trouble. It was sins like these that brought the Son of God down to earth as a Man and got Him nailed to the cross. He paid for all your sins, every single one.

That means you can be certain that God is not punishing you for your sins by sending you hardships in your life. He lets you experience temporary suffering, not because He is angry with you, but because He loves you. Isn’t this why parents discipline their children, out of love for them, because they want them to be good, humble, and responsible people when they grow up? Hebrews 12 says, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” And a few verses later, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (vv. 6, 11).

The Lord knows what you need. A life of constant success, where everything goes the way you want, would destroy your faith. Who needs faith if everything works out exactly the way they plan? When troubles and afflictions come your way, that is when faith can do what God gave it to you to do. That is when faith can rise up in every instance of hardship, pain, and sorrow and can take hold of the rock-solid promises of God. That is how faith conquers. It conquers by clinging to the One who conquered every fearful enemy for us—our Lord Jesus Christ.

He wants you to bring all your worries and fears to Him, trusting that He will take care of you. He wants you to endure and prevail in every hardship. He wants you to pin Him to His promises and not let Him go unless He blesses you. He will bless you, as He has so often done before. By His grace, He will carry you through your troubles and will strengthen your faith until you are ready to join all the faithful, the many “from east and west,” who will “recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 8:11).

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

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(picture from 15 century French Gothic manuscript painting)