Limping Jacob
Norah Summers
July 26, 2017
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Genesis 32: 22 – 31
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’
But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’
27 The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’
‘Jacob,’ he answered.
28 Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.’
29 Jacob said, ‘Please tell me your name.’
But he replied, ‘Why do you ask my name?’ Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.’
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
What a strange scene this is.
Jacob sends his companions on ahead, and remains alone at night.
He wrestles until daybreak with a stranger –
with God?
with his conscience?
with his fears?
He is still to meet with his brother, so perhaps all of these.
He receives a new name, and a blessing –
but also a physical reminder of the incident.
He limps away,
to face he knows not what.
God of mystery,
we do not know,
we cannot fathom,
how you work in our lives.
We experience strange encounters,
with other people,
with you,
with ourselves, even.
These can be turning points in our journey,
that bring us up short,
that leave us changed –
A new name –
a new sense of who we really are?
A blessing –
a powerful sense of who you are?
A limp – figurative if not physical -
a reminder of our earthbound nature
and need of wings.
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