The Christian life is a persistent wrestling with God, with his word, with faith, and with prayer. This is what our readings show us today.
In Genesis, Jacob is about to return from his long sojourn in the house of Laban. He had left his Father’s house, and God’s promised land, after his little tiff over the birthright with his brother Esau. So for many years Jacob lived in a kind of exile. He labored for his father-in-law, while God nonetheless blessed him with increasing wealth, wife an increasing family. But now it was time to return home, and face a possibly vengeful Esau. How would that reunion look? Would Esau kill him and his family? Or would his anger have subsided? The tension was thick, but God’s promises to Jacob still held.
Now, the night before the big reunion, God appears, in the form of a man, (and I would posit to you, this is Christ before his incarnation), and he wrestles with Jacob all night long. Jacob is tenacious, and doesn't even give up when God finally pops his hip like a kung-fu master, showing that he could have beaten him all along. Like a dad wrestling with his kids, he was going easy on him the whole time. But Jacob yet persists, and insists on a blessing, which he then receives. God loves to bless, anyway.
God renames him, “Israel”, meaning “one who wrestles with God.” And his words here, “you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed…” may remind us of Christ’s frequent statement, which we even heard last week, “your faith has saved you.”
Jacob’s whole life is typified by this wrestling match. In fact, every Christian’s life is the same. We too, the New Israel, the people of God, also wrestle with God in faith. It’s not always easy. We struggle with fightings within and fears without. Trouble on every side. The Old Adam and the New Man within us constantly contend for supremacy. We struggle against sin, and to be faithful Christians. We, too, wrestle with God... all night, all day, every day.
And God loves to bless us, too. He calls us to trust him, in good times and bad, in our coming in and going out, when the sun shines and when darkness surrounds us. You probably don’t have a brother who’s about to kill you, but you probably have something hanging over your head, some cloud of dread. Whether it’s your health, or your wealth, or a relationship in turmoil. Maybe you’re exhausted from wrestling with anxiety or worn out from battling some form of depression. Jacob’s whole life was a struggle, too, it seemed, and yet look how God blessed him.
Esau forgave him. He would live. His family would live, and thrive even. But the conflict in his life wasn’t over. He lost his favorite son because the brothers despised him, and believed Joseph was dead. Then a famine came and he had to send his sons to Egypt for food. But through all the ups and downs of this family, through all their wrestling with conflict and trouble and famine, God brought blessings, saved their lives, and made them into a great nation.
That nation, Israel, would also struggle and wrestle with God, but God blessed them nonetheless, delivered them from bondage, brought them through the sea, through the wilderness, fed them mana and defeated their enemies before them, and then settled them in back in the promised land. In other words, God kept his promises. He loved to bless his struggling people.
And best of all, he blessed them by remembering his promise to Adam and Eve, to Abraham, and Issac and Jacob. A deliverer who would save them not just from slavery or hardship, from oppression or affliction, but from sin and death itself. The one who would finally crush the serpent’s head. The one in whom all nations would be blessed.
Look how he blesses you, dear Christian, with all good things in Christ. Though you, too, wrestle with God, he gives you daily bread: spouse and house, children and friends, food and drink, health and wealth. He gives all you need to support this body and life. But even more. He sends his Son Jesus Christ to the cross in your place.
Jesus, who strove with God and man and even Satan himself, and prevailed, Jesus the true Israel, the persistent one who endured even death on a cross to accomplish his mission. He even conquered death itself, and thus we are blessed with a resurrection like his, and a promised land of our own, in the life of the world to come.
Ah, but the struggle of this life, this long wrestling match, is so much. We may want to throw in the towel. We may want to cry uncle. We may lose heart, lose courage, or be tempted even to lose faith. But cling to God like Jacob. Even when he pops your hip out of place. Persist, Christian, for he will bless.
But now turn to the other persistent character in our readings, the little old widow in Jesus’ parable. She simply wants justice from the judge, the wicked judge, who cares not a whit about her or about anyone. But because she wouldn’t give up, because she kept bothering him over and over, he finally relented. Not out of any sense of justice, but just to get her off his back. She just wore him down.
The point is clear. If an unjust judge will do the right thing just to get some peace and quiet from a pestering widow, how much more, how much more! Will the good and kind master, the Lord our righteous judge, how much more will he give to us, if we but persist and do not lose heart.
For we are not strangers to him. And he loves to give blessings. It may seem like our prayers fall on deaf ears, but oh, no, dear child of the Father, your prayers come to the Father in the name of Jesus. Your petitions are brought by one he can’t ignore, he won’t ignore. You approach the throne of God with your requests boldly in faith because you know your prayers are heard for the sake of the one who died for you.
Don’t get me wrong, and don’t get Jesus wrong, or Moses for that matter. We don’t receive God’s grace in Christ on the basis of our persistence. We don’t receive the blessing because we deserve it for not giving up. But rather, we don’t give up, because we trust our God to bless us, because he is trust-worthy, and therefore he calls us to take heart, and persist in faith and prayer.
And let’s let St. Paul chime in here, too, with his encouragement to Timothy. He speaks of the persistence of the Christian life in yet another way: “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed” and he likewise encourages all Christians to “endure sound teaching”. He’s telling us to persist in the Word. Holy Scripture. You see, it all comes together.
Continue. Endure. Persist. Do not lose heart. Wrestle with God, and don’t let go of him, cling to him until he blesses you, and even then... remain faithful. For he loves to bless. He loves to hear your prayer. And he has given you his sure and certain word, which points you always to Jesus Christ your Savior.
