Friday Night Smackdown with Yahweh

One of my favorite books of the Bible is Genesis. It’s filled with so much mystery and wonder. There is so much we don’t understand about it, and that fascinates me because I am convinced we too often think we know much more than we do. Or at least I’m that way. And that gets me into trouble.

Just when I think I have God figured out, just when I think I understand him, just when I think I no longer have to ponder or meditate on who God is so I can move on to more pressing matters… I get clunked over the head. Or assailed by a mysterious encounter with the Divine One that leaves me broken, yet grateful.

One of the stories that continues to fascinate me is found in Genesis 32:22-32. Read it. Ponder it. Meditate on it. Chew on it a while and see what happens. Put yourself in Jacob’s sandals and see yourself in the Dark Night of the Soul, wrestling with the Great Mystery that is God. I can’t say, “Oh, then it’ll all make sense!” Because it won’t. But the point of it is NOT to understand. The point is to be obedient and receive the blessing of God.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? Just sit back and receive the blessing. Sometimes it ain't so easy as all that.....

Why does Jacob wrestle with God? Doesn’t he know that God will bless him if he will just surrender? Doesn’t he recognize that God has already blessed him with two wives, many sons and daughters and herds and wealth beyond count? Why must he wrestle?

Does he really think he’ll win this contest? Does he really think God will submit to him and bless Jacob on Jacob’s terms? Does he not know he doesn’t have to manipulate and wrench the blessing away from God as he’s tried all his life? Doesn’t he know he simply has to receive it?

“I will not let go until you bless me.” What audacity! To say that to this God, Yahweh, “he who is.” He is beyond description, beyond understanding, beyond our capacity to capture or explain. Yet Jacob claims he “will not let go” until this God, cloaked in mystery, blesses him. What arrogance! What hutzpah!

Yet God does agree to wrestle with Jacob. “You want to wrestle, Jacob? Alright, let’s you and I tangle.” God comes down to Jacob’s level and allows himself to be demeaned by this pugnacious, narcissistic grandson of the first monotheist, that “pillar of faith” known to us as Abraham.

And so God wrestles.

I believe Jacob knew God had blessed him, but Jacob needed something more. Perhaps Jacob was after a particular kind of blessing, something he had not yet received, something beyond his ability to manipulate into being, something less tangible than goats and wives and camels and gold.

What is Jacob looking for? What else did he want/expect/need from God that he would wrestle Him for it? What more did he want from God? Why did he think he must wrestle God in order to be blessed?

What am I looking for? Do I really want to be wounded? Do I want my Father to hurt me? What sort of sick masochism is this? To desire to be hurt? By my Father? By God?

That doesn’t make much sense, but then again, Yahweh doesn’t make much sense sometimes either. He called Abram and Sarai – an old man and a barren woman – to be the beginning of a “great nation.” He told Moses the Stutterer to proclaim deliverance of Yahweh’s people from Pharaoh’s grasp. He picked a ruddy shepherd boy to be the king of Israel. He sent his Son to save the world – not with great displays of power and might, but through obedient suffering and compassion. Yahweh defies all our human logic.

Yahweh wrestles with Jacob.

Oddly enough, this gives me comfort.

The fact that God humbles himself and meets me where I am and, sometimes at least, on my terms, is indeed a blessing. God gets that intimate with me; he wrestles and fights, which requires drawing close so that we touch. I can feel his hot breath on my skin and hear his grunts as we struggle. I can see the sweat on his forehead and the look of challenge – and is that respect I see? – in his eyes. I can see the look of intensity on his face, and I realize there is nothing in the universe that is more important that this moment. God has met me right where I am, and he is intensely focused on me…right here, right now. Nothing else matters. He is mine… and I am his.

We wrestle.

And there is the blessing.

I am very comforted by the fact that I don’t worship a God who is distant and uninvolved. God is definitely in heaven, but heaven is not some far away realm that is unattainable. Heaven is all around me, and inside me. The point of being a Christian is not to get me into the kingdom of heaven, but is to get the kingdom of heaven into me!

Sometimes, though, getting heaven inside me is a struggle. I resist. I rationalize. I deny. I minimize and hide. I am too often convinced my way is the best way because it makes sense to me. But Instead of laughing at me or mocking me from a distance, Yahweh comes close to say, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end is leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12). There is no condemnation or shame in that statement. There is truth coupled with compassion; there is wisdom married to love; there is discipline undergirded with unwavering support and encouragement.

I sometimes need a gentle reminder, and sometimes I need a disturbing reminder. And sometimes – thank God not all the time – I need a wrestling match. A no-holds barred cage match.

We wrestle.

I walk away scarred from this encounter. I limp, but am not destroyed. I am humbled, but not driven into the dust. I am respected, for I have displayed courage in the face of the Almighty, and for that he has blessed me. The scar is precious to me, a vivid reminder of this moment, a trophy of my victorious defeat. I limp away, both proud and humbled, and I feel at peace with this God, this Divine Enigma, because I have met him in battle to prove myself. And I have discovered that Yahweh is God and I am not.

For people like Jacob, for people like me – and for people like some of you who might be reading this – Yahweh’s blessing comes at a great price, and we must risk everything if we are to receive it. It’s been said before by someone much wiser than me that grace is free but it ain’t cheap.

And thank God for that.