Sermon 13th June 2010
Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adjoa Andoh Cunnell, preaches about Jacob, based on the reading from Genesis 32:22-32
Well these are anxious times!
The Global Recession, American oil spills and of course Ghana v Serbia 3pm kick off today.
Later I’ll have the shirt on, I’ve got the flag in the car and draped across the house as I also have with the England flag much good that did us hmmm… Yes World Cup season is upon us and across the globe the hopes and fears for the national teams futures have reached fever pitch. Well we fans are doing all we can to help secure our team’s future but all we can do, won’t be enough to guarantee that success.
In this morning’s reading we meet Jacob son of Isaac grandson of Abraham, whose life John shared with us last Sunday. Jacob tries all he can throughout his early life to secure his own future, but his efforts alone are not enough to guarantee that future.
I have to admit to being one of those people who looked again at the story of Jacob’s early life and briefly got a bit holier than thou about his behaviour.
Rebekah wife to Isaac becomes pregnant with twins, and we are told is a particularly tough pregnancy
Rebekah takes her anxieties to God about this turbulent pregnancy and is reassured by God with the most extraordinary promise
Gen 25:23
The Lord says to her
“Two nations are within you:
You will give birth to two rival peoples.
One will be stronger than the other:
The older will serve the younger”
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided:
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the elder shall serve the younger.”
Now although Rebekah has God’s assurance that unusually in Bedouin culture the younger brother will rule over the older, Jacob over Esau, as Jacob grows up, this assurance isn’t enough to keep the young Jacob from wanting to secure his future himself.
It is a tricky family dynamic.
Verses 27/28 of Ch25 tell us that Esau is the outdoors type, the archetype hunter/gatherer man, while Jacob is more a stay at home type. Esau is his father’s favourite and Jacob his mother’s.
You get the impression God’s promise of future success notwithstanding, that Jacob is the calculating type relying on nothing but his own ability to make things happen.
When Jacob swindles Esau’s inheritance as the first born, by making him swear to hand it over, in exchange for a bowl of the bean soup, his hungry older brother craves, I’m struck by several things: firstly that action man Esau is extremely cavalier with his birthright and as such frankly he loses a bit of my sympathy, but secondly I’m struck by just how ambitious Jacob is, and what an opportunist! He goes against the Bedouin tradition of offering hospitality to all, in denying his own brother food, and further he uses the promise of food, as a lever to take what is not rightly his. Surely his mother must have told her favourite son, of God’s promise that
“the older (brother) will serve the younger”
Why does Jacob have to swindle Esau’s birthright from him, why doesn’t he trust God’s promise?
Again later we see Jacob and Rebekah’s lack of faith in that promise from God, when they now plot together to swindle Esau out of his blessing from his dying father Isaac.
It’s pretty low stuff.
As a parent I can’t conceive of plotting so thoroughly with one of my children against another, and encouraging a son to deceive both his blind, ailing father and his already once cheated older brother…not good parenting, not a good model of behaviour for Jacob to follow.
And so it proves.
Having fooled Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob and not Esau the consequences are severe for Jacob and unsurprisingly so, when we reflect on the contrast in blessings offered to the two brothers.
To Jacob, believing him to be Esau, Isaac says Gen 27:28-29
“May God give you dew from heaven and make your fields fertile!
May he give you plenty of corn and wine!
May nations be your servants, and may your mother’s descendants bow down before you.
May those who curse you be cursed,
and may those who bless you be blessed.”
“May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
And nations bow down to you
Be lord over your brothers,
And may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”
Contrast that with the sorrowful conversation between Esau and Isaac his father, when the truth of the deception comes to light. Isaac has to tell Esau that a blessing once given cannot be taken back. “ There is nothing `I can do for you my son” Isaac tells his weeping pleading eldest child.
Isaac says in Gen 27:39-40
“No dew from heaven for you,
No fertile fields for you.
You will live by the sword,
But be your brother’s slave.
Yet when you rebel, (or grow restless)
You will break away from his control”
“See, away from the fatness of the earth
shall your home be,
and away from the dew of heaven on high.
By your sword you shall live,
And you shall serve your brother:
But when you break loose,
You shall break his yoke from your neck.”
No wonder Jacob has to leave home to flee his brother’s rage and go and live with his mother’s brother, his Uncle Laban, in Mesopotamia.
It seems for the time being at least that all Jacob’s plotting has brought him is the rage of his brother and exile.
And yet for all his dreadful behaviour God keeps faith with this ambitious younger son, coming to him in a dream at the start of his journey to Uncle Laban.
Jacob sees a stairway to heaven from earth and God standing beside him, expanding on the promise made to his pregnant mother all those years before.
Not only does God promise at Gen 28:13
“I will give to you and your descendants this land on which you are lying”
“the land on which you lie ,I will give to you and to your offspring:”
But also God reminds him at verse15,
“Remember, I will be with you and protect you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done all that I have promised you.”
“Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land: for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Yet Jacob, even after this dream, recognising that he has seen God, building a traditional mound of stones in recognition, dedicating that memorial to God, naming it Bethel, meaning house of God, even after all this Jacob still cannot bring himself to trust his future to God’s care.
The most he will allow God is a fairly mealy mouthed vow
Gen 28:20-21
“If you will be with me and protect me on the journey I am making and give me food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father’s home, then you will be my God.”
“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God,”
It’s hardly a ringing endorsement of Jacob’s faith in God’s promises and he continues to hold this attitude during the many years of his exile in Mesopotamia with Uncle Laban.
It is a long and eventful exile too, having fallen in love with Rachel, Laban’s younger daughter and worked 7 years for his uncle in order to marry her, on his wedding night Jacob is tricked into sleeping with the older sister Leah, and ends up marrying them both, but at the price of having to work another 7 years for Uncle Laban.
And Jacob’s troubles continue, with wives and children and childlessness and competition between wives and children, never mind an unreliable and at times dangerous uncle.
Through it all Jacob does well materially, but he is never at peace. Worried domestically, threatened by his Uncle’s jealousy at his growing prosperity and still in truth in exile, eventually Jacob and Uncle Laban reconcile and Jacob leaves for home.
He takes with him, his large flocks, family and servants and begins the long journey back towards an uncertain welcome in Canaan. Fearful of his brother Esau still, Jacob now reminds God of his promise to keep him safe, and acknowledges how God has blessed him in exile with family and wealth. But still he is not content to leave matters in God’s hands.
He sends all his goods, family and servants on ahead with plenty of gifts to placate his older brother, telling his servants to address Esau as the Master to whom his servant Jacob has sent all these gifts.
Having sent the gifts and household on ahead Jacob spends a final night alone at the camp he made having seen some angels as he journeyed.
It is at this camp, Mahanaim (meaning God’s camp) that we meet Jacob in this mornings reading.
Now why have I gone into such detail around the life journey that brings Jacob to this point? Well partly to get us all back up to speed with the story and the events that led us here, but also to try to give a brief sense of who Jacob is at this moment in his life.
He is a wealthy man, successful with a large family, healthy children he should feel blessed by God one might think. Yet he is always anxious, everything has been a struggle for Jacob. Having been deceitful to get to where he is, deceived and threatened by his uncle, surrounded by a fractious family, it is now time to face the music at home.
Jacob’s ambition and scheming have not brought him contentment, and he has never trusted enough in God to really have confidence in the promise God has repeatedly made to him that all would be well, he and his descendents would be taken care of.
This is where I become rather holier than thou. I mean really what is wrong with the man, why can’t he just hear what God is saying and trust, really trust that when God makes a promise of care, he will keep that promise without the need for the obsessive human machinations that Jacob has employed.
But then I pause and take a look at my own life, my own stresses and lack of faith in God’s provision for me.
I’m self employed….the mantra goes “don’t work don’t eat”. Planning holidays bah! Guaranteed availability for a school sports day or concert, I wish! Holiday Pay? Sick pay? In my dreams! And I am sure we all have our own variations on that theme. The constant fretting about work and home and family and friends, about getting on and doing the right thing and making plans, keeping in with our work colleagues, worries about promotion, demotion, redundancy, falling out with family members, misunderstandings, can we make the rent or the mortgage this month, how can we afford that medical treatment, car repair, school kit, birthday present, how much longer will we have to wait for that appointment. We are beset with anxieties from all sides and we pray and we fret and we pray a bit harder… And when our prayers get the answer we’ve been hoping for, then perhaps for a while we worry a little less and can glory a little more in God’s faithful presence.
But what about when are prayers don’t get the answer we’re hoping for? Or when no answer at all seems to be forthcoming. When we don’t get the job, or someone else gets the promotion, when the person we love continues to be unwell, when we feel so anxious that we can’t see beyond our worries? Is it then that our faith in God’s provision for our physical and spiritual needs tails off? Is it then that we feel we have to step in, take action, and do everything we can, like Jacob.
And what then what if all our own efforts don’t seem to make it better?
I’m sure many of you will be familiar with the sentiment from war zones that ”there are no atheists in a foxhole”. Is it only then when we are in the most extreme circumstances that we can stop struggling and cling to God, recognise again his mighty presence in our lives?
Perhaps we now see Jacob in that foxhole place, lying by the river Jabbok, overwhelmed by anxiety at what the morning will hold, it has been many years now since he last saw his brother, will Esau still be raging about his stolen birthright, will he greet Jacob with an embrace or a sword.
In that night of wrestling the man Jacob comes to understand is God, his whole life is transformed. He wrestles that man, as he has wrestled life for everything he has, as he has wrestled with his confidence in God’s providence. During the fight with a touch of one single breath this creator God as a man, could destroy Jacob and yet for the entire night he meets Jacob where he is, until as the light of day arrives and Jacob must meet with the consequences of his life’s actions, the Man dislocates Jacob’s hip. Having dislocated my shoulder on the 3 separate and agonizing occasions, worse than giving birth, I dread to think how much pain Jacob must have been in. Exhausted and in agony he clings on to this strange Man, refusing to let go, like a boxer in the ring in the final round, hanging on to his opponent so as to avoid further blows, Jacob refuses to let go until the Man blesses him, an assurance that the struggle will be over.
In all these years, since baby twin Jacob was struggling in the womb, this need for God’s blessing is what God has been yearning for Jacob to ask of him.
And in receiving that blessing Jacob is transformed.
There is no need for him to discover the Man’s name, he knows. He is no longer Jacob, whose name means supplanter or cheat, he is a new man named by God Israel meaning ‘he struggles or strives with God’, or ‘God Struggles, God Strives’ in Hebrew.
And what richness is there in that name!
God struggles to get us to see he is there and longing for a right relationship with us. He strives on our behalf, providing for us in His time, so that we can focus on him and on his Kingdom.
When will we stop struggling and realise that as with Jacob Israel, we too have met with God face to face in the face of Jesus. When will we take to heart those words of Jesus’ from the sermon on the mount
Matthew 6:31-33
“So do not start worrying: ‘where will my food come from? Or my drink? Or my clothes?’(these are the things the pagans are always concerned about.)
Your father in heaven knows that you need all these things. Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.”
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or what will we drink/’or ‘What will we wear/’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these will be given to you as well”
Next time we sing ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Hallelu hallelujah’, perhaps we’ll really check in with our own faith and be encouraged and comforted by God’s continuing promise to us.
As for Jacob who God transformed into Israel, the man and the Nation…. that morning after the night of struggle, when he crossed the river to join his family
Gen33:3-5 tells us
“Jacob went ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. They were both crying”.
“ He himself went on ahead of them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his brother.
But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and they wept.”
Our heavenly Father yearns to throw his arms around us, we just need to keep clinging to his faithful presence, at all times and in all circumstances
So this morning let’s be encouraged by Jacob, to seek the blessing of God’s peace in his promise to us, and be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what God requires of us, and know in faith that He will provide us with all these other things.”
Amen
Well these are anxious times!
The Global Recession, American oil spills and of course Ghana v Serbia 3pm kick off today.
Later I’ll have the shirt on, I’ve got the flag in the car and draped across the house as I also have with the England flag much good that did us hmmm… Yes World Cup season is upon us and across the globe the hopes and fears for the national teams futures have reached fever pitch. Well we fans are doing all we can to help secure our team’s future but all we can do, won’t be enough to guarantee that success.
In this morning’s reading we meet Jacob son of Isaac grandson of Abraham, whose life John shared with us last Sunday. Jacob tries all he can throughout his early life to secure his own future, but his efforts alone are not enough to guarantee that future.
I have to admit to being one of those people who looked again at the story of Jacob’s early life and briefly got a bit holier than thou about his behaviour.
Rebekah wife to Isaac becomes pregnant with twins, and we are told is a particularly tough pregnancy
Rebekah takes her anxieties to God about this turbulent pregnancy and is reassured by God with the most extraordinary promise
Gen 25:23
The Lord says to her
“Two nations are within you:
You will give birth to two rival peoples.
One will be stronger than the other:
The older will serve the younger”
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided:
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the elder shall serve the younger.”
Now although Rebekah has God’s assurance that unusually in Bedouin culture the younger brother will rule over the older, Jacob over Esau, as Jacob grows up, this assurance isn’t enough to keep the young Jacob from wanting to secure his future himself.
It is a tricky family dynamic.
Verses 27/28 of Ch25 tell us that Esau is the outdoors type, the archetype hunter/gatherer man, while Jacob is more a stay at home type. Esau is his father’s favourite and Jacob his mother’s.
You get the impression God’s promise of future success notwithstanding, that Jacob is the calculating type relying on nothing but his own ability to make things happen.
When Jacob swindles Esau’s inheritance as the first born, by making him swear to hand it over, in exchange for a bowl of the bean soup, his hungry older brother craves, I’m struck by several things: firstly that action man Esau is extremely cavalier with his birthright and as such frankly he loses a bit of my sympathy, but secondly I’m struck by just how ambitious Jacob is, and what an opportunist! He goes against the Bedouin tradition of offering hospitality to all, in denying his own brother food, and further he uses the promise of food, as a lever to take what is not rightly his. Surely his mother must have told her favourite son, of God’s promise that
“the older (brother) will serve the younger”
Why does Jacob have to swindle Esau’s birthright from him, why doesn’t he trust God’s promise?
Again later we see Jacob and Rebekah’s lack of faith in that promise from God, when they now plot together to swindle Esau out of his blessing from his dying father Isaac.
It’s pretty low stuff.
As a parent I can’t conceive of plotting so thoroughly with one of my children against another, and encouraging a son to deceive both his blind, ailing father and his already once cheated older brother…not good parenting, not a good model of behaviour for Jacob to follow.
And so it proves.
Having fooled Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob and not Esau the consequences are severe for Jacob and unsurprisingly so, when we reflect on the contrast in blessings offered to the two brothers.
To Jacob, believing him to be Esau, Isaac says Gen 27:28-29
“May God give you dew from heaven and make your fields fertile!
May he give you plenty of corn and wine!
May nations be your servants, and may your mother’s descendants bow down before you.
May those who curse you be cursed,
and may those who bless you be blessed.”
“May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
And nations bow down to you
Be lord over your brothers,
And may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”
Contrast that with the sorrowful conversation between Esau and Isaac his father, when the truth of the deception comes to light. Isaac has to tell Esau that a blessing once given cannot be taken back. “ There is nothing `I can do for you my son” Isaac tells his weeping pleading eldest child.
Isaac says in Gen 27:39-40
“No dew from heaven for you,
No fertile fields for you.
You will live by the sword,
But be your brother’s slave.
Yet when you rebel, (or grow restless)
You will break away from his control”
“See, away from the fatness of the earth
shall your home be,
and away from the dew of heaven on high.
By your sword you shall live,
And you shall serve your brother:
But when you break loose,
You shall break his yoke from your neck.”
No wonder Jacob has to leave home to flee his brother’s rage and go and live with his mother’s brother, his Uncle Laban, in Mesopotamia.
It seems for the time being at least that all Jacob’s plotting has brought him is the rage of his brother and exile.
And yet for all his dreadful behaviour God keeps faith with this ambitious younger son, coming to him in a dream at the start of his journey to Uncle Laban.
Jacob sees a stairway to heaven from earth and God standing beside him, expanding on the promise made to his pregnant mother all those years before.
Not only does God promise at Gen 28:13
“I will give to you and your descendants this land on which you are lying”
“the land on which you lie ,I will give to you and to your offspring:”
But also God reminds him at verse15,
“Remember, I will be with you and protect you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done all that I have promised you.”
“Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land: for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Yet Jacob, even after this dream, recognising that he has seen God, building a traditional mound of stones in recognition, dedicating that memorial to God, naming it Bethel, meaning house of God, even after all this Jacob still cannot bring himself to trust his future to God’s care.
The most he will allow God is a fairly mealy mouthed vow
Gen 28:20-21
“If you will be with me and protect me on the journey I am making and give me food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father’s home, then you will be my God.”
“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God,”
It’s hardly a ringing endorsement of Jacob’s faith in God’s promises and he continues to hold this attitude during the many years of his exile in Mesopotamia with Uncle Laban.
It is a long and eventful exile too, having fallen in love with Rachel, Laban’s younger daughter and worked 7 years for his uncle in order to marry her, on his wedding night Jacob is tricked into sleeping with the older sister Leah, and ends up marrying them both, but at the price of having to work another 7 years for Uncle Laban.
And Jacob’s troubles continue, with wives and children and childlessness and competition between wives and children, never mind an unreliable and at times dangerous uncle.
Through it all Jacob does well materially, but he is never at peace. Worried domestically, threatened by his Uncle’s jealousy at his growing prosperity and still in truth in exile, eventually Jacob and Uncle Laban reconcile and Jacob leaves for home.
He takes with him, his large flocks, family and servants and begins the long journey back towards an uncertain welcome in Canaan. Fearful of his brother Esau still, Jacob now reminds God of his promise to keep him safe, and acknowledges how God has blessed him in exile with family and wealth. But still he is not content to leave matters in God’s hands.
He sends all his goods, family and servants on ahead with plenty of gifts to placate his older brother, telling his servants to address Esau as the Master to whom his servant Jacob has sent all these gifts.
Having sent the gifts and household on ahead Jacob spends a final night alone at the camp he made having seen some angels as he journeyed.
It is at this camp, Mahanaim (meaning God’s camp) that we meet Jacob in this mornings reading.
Now why have I gone into such detail around the life journey that brings Jacob to this point? Well partly to get us all back up to speed with the story and the events that led us here, but also to try to give a brief sense of who Jacob is at this moment in his life.
He is a wealthy man, successful with a large family, healthy children he should feel blessed by God one might think. Yet he is always anxious, everything has been a struggle for Jacob. Having been deceitful to get to where he is, deceived and threatened by his uncle, surrounded by a fractious family, it is now time to face the music at home.
Jacob’s ambition and scheming have not brought him contentment, and he has never trusted enough in God to really have confidence in the promise God has repeatedly made to him that all would be well, he and his descendents would be taken care of.
This is where I become rather holier than thou. I mean really what is wrong with the man, why can’t he just hear what God is saying and trust, really trust that when God makes a promise of care, he will keep that promise without the need for the obsessive human machinations that Jacob has employed.
But then I pause and take a look at my own life, my own stresses and lack of faith in God’s provision for me.
I’m self employed….the mantra goes “don’t work don’t eat”. Planning holidays bah! Guaranteed availability for a school sports day or concert, I wish! Holiday Pay? Sick pay? In my dreams! And I am sure we all have our own variations on that theme. The constant fretting about work and home and family and friends, about getting on and doing the right thing and making plans, keeping in with our work colleagues, worries about promotion, demotion, redundancy, falling out with family members, misunderstandings, can we make the rent or the mortgage this month, how can we afford that medical treatment, car repair, school kit, birthday present, how much longer will we have to wait for that appointment. We are beset with anxieties from all sides and we pray and we fret and we pray a bit harder… And when our prayers get the answer we’ve been hoping for, then perhaps for a while we worry a little less and can glory a little more in God’s faithful presence.
But what about when are prayers don’t get the answer we’re hoping for? Or when no answer at all seems to be forthcoming. When we don’t get the job, or someone else gets the promotion, when the person we love continues to be unwell, when we feel so anxious that we can’t see beyond our worries? Is it then that our faith in God’s provision for our physical and spiritual needs tails off? Is it then that we feel we have to step in, take action, and do everything we can, like Jacob.
And what then what if all our own efforts don’t seem to make it better?
I’m sure many of you will be familiar with the sentiment from war zones that ”there are no atheists in a foxhole”. Is it only then when we are in the most extreme circumstances that we can stop struggling and cling to God, recognise again his mighty presence in our lives?
Perhaps we now see Jacob in that foxhole place, lying by the river Jabbok, overwhelmed by anxiety at what the morning will hold, it has been many years now since he last saw his brother, will Esau still be raging about his stolen birthright, will he greet Jacob with an embrace or a sword.
In that night of wrestling the man Jacob comes to understand is God, his whole life is transformed. He wrestles that man, as he has wrestled life for everything he has, as he has wrestled with his confidence in God’s providence. During the fight with a touch of one single breath this creator God as a man, could destroy Jacob and yet for the entire night he meets Jacob where he is, until as the light of day arrives and Jacob must meet with the consequences of his life’s actions, the Man dislocates Jacob’s hip. Having dislocated my shoulder on the 3 separate and agonizing occasions, worse than giving birth, I dread to think how much pain Jacob must have been in. Exhausted and in agony he clings on to this strange Man, refusing to let go, like a boxer in the ring in the final round, hanging on to his opponent so as to avoid further blows, Jacob refuses to let go until the Man blesses him, an assurance that the struggle will be over.
In all these years, since baby twin Jacob was struggling in the womb, this need for God’s blessing is what God has been yearning for Jacob to ask of him.
And in receiving that blessing Jacob is transformed.
There is no need for him to discover the Man’s name, he knows. He is no longer Jacob, whose name means supplanter or cheat, he is a new man named by God Israel meaning ‘he struggles or strives with God’, or ‘God Struggles, God Strives’ in Hebrew.
And what richness is there in that name!
God struggles to get us to see he is there and longing for a right relationship with us. He strives on our behalf, providing for us in His time, so that we can focus on him and on his Kingdom.
When will we stop struggling and realise that as with Jacob Israel, we too have met with God face to face in the face of Jesus. When will we take to heart those words of Jesus’ from the sermon on the mount
Matthew 6:31-33
“So do not start worrying: ‘where will my food come from? Or my drink? Or my clothes?’(these are the things the pagans are always concerned about.)
Your father in heaven knows that you need all these things. Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.”
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or what will we drink/’or ‘What will we wear/’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these will be given to you as well”
Next time we sing ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Hallelu hallelujah’, perhaps we’ll really check in with our own faith and be encouraged and comforted by God’s continuing promise to us.
As for Jacob who God transformed into Israel, the man and the Nation…. that morning after the night of struggle, when he crossed the river to join his family
Gen33:3-5 tells us
“Jacob went ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. They were both crying”.
“ He himself went on ahead of them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his brother.
But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and they wept.”
Our heavenly Father yearns to throw his arms around us, we just need to keep clinging to his faithful presence, at all times and in all circumstances
So this morning let’s be encouraged by Jacob, to seek the blessing of God’s peace in his promise to us, and be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what God requires of us, and know in faith that He will provide us with all these other things.”
Amen
posted by Parish Administrator at 2:43 pm
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