An Exclusive All-Time Wrestling Engagement

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Maybe you didn’t know this, or maybe you did, but there’s lots of sports in the Bible. St. Paul was always writing about running and foot races. In the Old Testament there is archery, and javelin throwing.

It’s true that you’d have to search pretty hard with a good imagination to find baseball or football mentioned, but there is this incredible, famous wrestling match. It was never on Pay-Per-View. If it were, you’d have gotten money’s worth; it lasted all night! This was Jacob, father of the tribes of Israel versus someone, who we later learn is The One. God himself!

To really understand this strange match—you need to know what Jacob was doing there all alone by the Jabbok Stream. Jacob was dreadfully afraid that night. He just heard his brother Esau was coming. By now Jacob had tricked his father Isaac into giving him the blessings and birthrights that should have gone to his slightly older twin brother Esau.

Ever since then, things always seemed to go right for Jacob, but not for Esau. These two had struggled and wrestled with each other, from their mother’s womb. And Jacob had sneaked and connived his way to the top.

Then, he ran to escape that house of anger to Laban, where he married, had children, and grew rich. Then, God suddenly told him to return, promising to take care of him.

Jacob returned, sent messengers to let them know he was coming. The messengers returned, saying “Esau is already on his way to meet you, and he’s coming with 400 men!”

Jacob deserved and dreaded Esau’s anger; he turned to God and admitted his fear and unworthiness. “But,” he said, “You are the God of my grandfather Abraham, and of my father Isaac. You said you would protect me!”

He sent more gifts to Esau, placed himself between Esau and his wives and children. And then Jacob spent that night wrestling with someone, The One. Was this someone God in all his splendor? No, not in all his splendor; something remained hidden. But he was God, very real and present. So present, that Jacob felt, grabbed, pushed and pulled… most important… Jacob held on, and wouldn’t let go! Even when the struggle became agonizing pain, he held on.

This wasn’t a fight between rivals. It also wasn’t a friendly match. It wasn’t just for sport. All of Jacob’s fear, anger, and guilt were being channeled through this incredibly heated, painful, physical prayer. It could no longer be just a prayer. It was wrestling match with God. That’s how it connects to us.

There was a philosopher awhile back, who has often been misquoted and taken out of context by the Christian church. This philosopher struggled with faith all his life, and never quite let go. He said and wrote things that were highly critical of the church, things that rebelled against church doctrine.

He was the son of a Lutheran pastor, after all. When he is read now-a-days, people interpret his criticisms to suggest that Nietzsche was an atheist. But that’s not quite so—he criticized the institutions, theologies and practices of the Church, but from his perspective, he did it as one from within faith.

One commentator, Solomon, has said that if you took the names of Nietzsche’s friends and put them alongside his foes, you would find that they were the same people. You could say that about his friends, his faith and his God. He wrestled all his life, but never let go. He had huge doubts. But faith is always victorious.

One of my favorite preachers and theologians of 20^th C. America was Paul Tillich. In one sermon, he said, “Faith is the courage that conquers doubt, not by removing it, but by taking it as an element into itself.”

He even went on to say that our faith needs our doubts. The whole point of faith is to embrace God by leaping over or through the shadows of doubts and grabbing hold of his extended hand, a hand that you can neither see nor prove exists. Doubts and fears can be wrestled with for your entire life, …without ever giving up your faith.

And throughout all the struggle, no matter how long and painful, even if things get put out of joint, and we begin to walk with a limp, faith will remain victorious. Faith always raises its head to say, “Nevertheless! Yes, I have my doubts, but nevertheless, I’m holding on. I belong to God.”

And so Jacob wrestled, and finally, the someone, the Some One, said, “Okay—enough. The sun is rising, you still have me, and your brother is coming. It’s time to move on.”

But Jacob was not satisfied, “Not until you bless me! Not until I can limp away this night, feeling some resolution. I need a sign.”

“Here is your blessing, Jacob, take on this new name, Israel. It means, to struggle with God.”

How appropriate. It is a good name for Jacob, for the people of Israel, and all of us Gentiles who were adopted into her. We struggle with God, not against God, not as enemies. This isn’t for sport or fun. With God, we struggle with real life. We turn to him, honestly, and fiercely searching for blessings and resolutions.

I’ve had nights, days, and even weeks like Jacob’s wrestling match—maybe not as sweaty, or physically damaging—but just as real, with a God who is just as real. The fact that I’m standing here today does not tell you that my doubts were or are all overcome. It does tell you that I’m still holding on.

“Faith is the courage that conquers doubt, not by removing it, but by taking it as an element into itself.”

One last thing. It’s interesting. God came to Jacob in human form. His full splendor, glory, and eternity was shrouded, as he has always done. God has always reserved something, he kept it from Jacob, God kept it even from Moses: …his name.

God has never told us his name. When Jacob asked for his name, the some one asked, (actually, he said,) “Why do you ask?” In other words, “You know who I am.”

God would later say to Moses, “I am who I am.”

Even the sacred name of scripture, Yahweh, is really just a very old form of the “to be” verb. It means, “the one who is.”

Every name given to God is actually an adjectival noun to describe him. It’s imagery that tries to describe a piece of eternity and glory that we have yet to comprehend. These are like shadows cast into our world from the fourth dimension.

There is an old thought that knowing someone’s name gives you a special influence, a kind of harness you can have on them. Paul Tillich, said, “God would not be God if we could possess Him like any object of our familiar world, and verify His reality like any other reality.”

But with God, the reason we can hope, the reason we can have a faith beyond doubts, is because we believe in a God who is beyond our reach and cannot be harnessed, but chooses to reach instead to us.

He chooses to live among us. He is a God who is present because he chooses to be present, not because we conjure him into our lives. He is a God who loves us simply because he chooses us, not because we talk him into it, or prove our value. He is influenced by us, and, yes, influenced by our cries and prayers, not because we hold some human sway over him, but because he freely wishes to answer and save us.

He even wrestles with us. He embraces our fears and doubts, makes them his struggle, too. He does this not because we call out to him, not because we force him into the match—but because he doesn’t want to let us go, not without giving us a hope of ultimate resolution. He wants to give us a new name and destiny, a blessing.

He is God. The fact that he reserves his name describes his eternal glory that can’t be touched. It also describes his desire and free choice to embrace us, as he did Jacob that night, as he did through the forgiving embrace of Esau, his brother, the next day.

He embraces us through the life and hands of Jesus Christ, stretched on a cross and lifted in blessing at his ascension, and each and everyday, through people and life around you, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God freely wrestles with and embraces you. If you have a list of friends and a list of people you fight against, put God on both of them. Actually, he is already there, through those people.

You may not know his name. But you know who he is. The Great I AM, untouchable, but wrestling with you and embracing you. He won’t let go, so don’t you let go.

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