HANG ON
Jacob woke up in the middle of the night because he didn’t know what he was going to do. This son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham himself, had his entire family with him on the banks of the Jabbok River - on the east side of the Jordan River - and he was a little bit worried about what was going to happen the next morning. Because for the past few months Jacob had been traveling for over 500 miles with his two wives and his two female servants and his 11 sons and all of his flocks and all of his herds and all of his possessions back to the land of Edom. And he had traveled all that way to meet his brother Esau. The problem was: 20 years before, Jacob had made Esau so angry that his brother wanted to kill him! That’s why Jacob hadn’t been around for the last two decades! He had been up in a place called Haran, among his mother’s relatives. But during that time, while Jacob was living with and working for his uncle Laban, his relationship with his mother’s brother didn’t turn out too well either. Using his uncle’s unfair treatment as an excuse to get away, Jacob gathered up everything he had (including Laban’s two daughter that Jacob had married as well as Laban’s grandchildren) and snuck out at night, hoping never to see his uncle again. But Laban caught up with him three days later, and at that place where they met those two men came to an agreement that neither one of them would cross that boundary line for the rest of their lives. And so, in effect, Jacob and Laban signed a restraining order against each other in the sight of God.
Which brings us back to Jacob in the middle of the night, on the banks of the Jabbok River, sitting on the northern edge of the land of Edom, with a reunion scheduled the next morning with his older brother… and Jacob had burned all of his bridges! Jacob didn’t know what was going to happen. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He didn’t know exactly how to fix the problem. And so that night, with everything he had, his entire family, and his own life hanging in the balance, he finally did what he should have been doing all along: he hung on to the promises of his God.
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 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. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."
What a strange thing that happened to Jacob that night! And what a bold move he made! Once he realized that the man he was wrestling with was not just a mere man but was actually God himself, Jacob wouldn’t release he grip! “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” he said! What a brash thing to say to the Lord himself! We almost cringe at how disrespectful and arrogant Jacob sounds here, don’t we? But Jacob was not just being presumptuous. And he wasn’t demanding something of the Lord that was inappropriate or unacceptable. Jacob was simply hanging on to the promises that the Lord had once given him and asking the Lord to keep his word. Because the promises that God had given him seemed to be in danger of not coming true.
Just two decades earlier, 20 miles southeast of where Jacob was that night, the Lord had appeared to him in a dream. And as Jacob watched angels going up and down a stairway leading to heaven, God himself promised him, “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All people on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Gen. 28:14-15). And so now that Jacob was facing a situation in which his entire family could be destroyed and his own life taken, he held God to his promise. He banked on the Lord’s blessing. Jacob wanted to make sure that the Lord remembered what he had said to him and would follow through. It was a bold act on his part. But it was also a godly act, a Christian confession. Jacob was not going to depend on his own ability to fix the situation. He was going to fully rely on the promises of God.
Of course, Jacob wasn’t always this trusting in his Lord’s words. When he was younger and still living with his parents, the Lord had publically said that Jacob was to receive the birthright instead of his older brother Esau. But instead of hanging on to that promise of the Lord, Jacob (and his mother) became a little impatient and he tricked his father and brother out of that special privilege. And later on, while he was working for his uncle Laban, although the Lord had promised to always be with him and bless him with everything that he needed, Jacob tried to steal from Laban by manipulating his flocks and herds to his own advantage. He was not patient enough to hang on to God’s promises; rather, he was trying to get for himself what he thought he needed at that very moment. It wasn’t until that night he found himself on the edge of Edom, a dawn away from facing his estranged brother for the first time in 20 years, that Jacob finally hung his hopes and all of his trust on what he should have been relying on the entire time.
God’s promises are worth hanging onto. They are worth waiting for. We just get a little too impatient sometimes, just like Jacob once did. We do not want to wait for the Lord to do what he is going to do. We do not want to wait for the Lord to fix what he is going to fix. We do not want to wait for the Lord to bring about whatever he is going to bring about. Because it doesn’t look like it’s going to work anyway! It doesn’t seem as if the situation is going to get any better anytime soon! The pain is too severe or the problem is too complicated or the relationship is too damaged or the situation is too hopeless or it’s just been too long, it’s been too draining, it’s been too overwhelming, and something has to be done… now, in the way we want it done, for the reasons we think it should happen. And so at those times, the promises that God gives to us, such as, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28), and “What I have said, that is what I will bring about; what I have planned, that is what I will do” (Is. 46:11), and “I will be with you always to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20)… those promises are set aside for the time being. We release our grip on them, at least with one hand and sometimes with both, so that we can reach for and try out something else in the meantime. Because God’s promises are taking too long! And whatever the Lord is doing up there is certainly not fitting our time schedule or corresponding with our expert advice.
You think Jacob was brash for hanging onto the Lord’s promises and holding the Lord to them? It’s brash for us not to hang onto the Lord’s promises! To throw them aside! To become so impatient with him and so flustered that we can’t possibly sit still any longer and wait for the Lord to do what he said he would do! “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” Like an inconvenienced child from the back seat the Lord just doesn’t drive fast enough for us sometimes. Like a frustrated observer of someone else’s effort: “OK, just stop what you’re doing and let me take care of it,” we sometimes just don’t think the Lord is handling the situation correctly. Like an annoyed parent: “Can you please hurry up? Everyone is waiting for you!” we oftentimes speak as if God is a child who just isn’t listening to what we are telling him and almost dragging his feet on purpose. And sadly, it’s not humorous; it’s serious. It’s sinful impatience. It’s the disgruntled attitude of not wanting to hang onto God’s promises any longer and not being content with waiting for the Lord to fulfill them.
It took Jacob the better part of his life and a disappointed father and a greedy and controlling uncle and two bickering wives and two more competitive pseudo-servant-wives and a furious brother and a 500 mile trek without a home to go to for Jacob to finally drop that impatient attitude and hang onto the promises that the Lord had never taken away. Sometimes the Lord puts us into difficult situations so that we are forced to rely on him once again too. Sometimes he takes away our every option, allowing us to fail multiple times over, cornering us with impossibilities and frustrations and doubts, so that we can do nothing else but grasp hold of and hang onto what he has promised us in his Word. You have had plenty of those situations in your life and, most likely, you will have plenty more. And when you do find yourself in that position again, with nowhere else to turn and no other plan to try, hang on to any and every promise of your Lord. But hang on to this one especially: the nails that Christ hung on himself.
Christ’s hands, probably right below the wrist bones, were tacked to a piece of wood with oversized nails. You can be sure there was some blood and probably more pain than we would want to imagine. And there Christ hung until he died. Hang on those nails. Grab hold of and hang on those nails. Not to die, of course, but to live. Grasp in your hands those bloody metal stakes and never let go. Because there in your hands is the greatest promise of all. Those nails that you grasp, those pointed iron pegs that pinned your Savior to a cross guarantee the promise of forgiveness; they secure the promise of salvation; they solidify the promise of eternal life. Those nails prove to us that if God says it, he’s going to do it, no matter how painful or how time-consuming or how thoroughly humiliating it may be for him. He made you a promise. And if to fulfill that promise he was going to have to give up his own life and face the terrors of hell for every sin that has ever been committed and even bear the brunt of his own Father’s wrath on the enemies and the evils of this world, then that’s the way it was going to be! God will not lie to you! God will not fail you! God will not forget about you or lose track of time or get too preoccupied with something else that your needs go unnoticed. God will come through for you. Hang on! God will see to it that everything is taken care of. Hang on! God will not leave you hanging. Hang on! Hang on to those nails that once kept Jesus hanging on a cross. Because if he kept that promise, he’ll certainly keep every other promise he has made.
Our reading from the Old Testament today doesn’t get to the finale of the story, but in the end, God does keep his promise that Jacob so tenaciously clung to the night before. The next day, when Jacob finally did meet up with his brother, “Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept” (33:4). Jacob’s life was not in danger after all. His family was not completely destroyed. God did remember his promise. And from that day on Jacob’s descendants continued to multiply through his twelve sons - just as God had promised. The entire clan then moved to Egypt where they became a great nation - just as God had promised. The Lord then led those people back to the Promised Land and gave it to them as their home - just as God had promised. And eventually, some 1700+ years after Jacob had wrestled with God, from the line of Jacob the Savior whom everyone had been waiting for was born - just as God had promised.
God’s promises for you will come true as well - promises of peace and safety and strength and comfort and eternal life. And although it probably won’t take 1700+ years for most of them to be fulfilled, you might have to wait just a little bit for some of them. And that’s just fine, isn’t it? Because God has it all in order. He knows exactly what needs to be done. He knows exactly how to do it. And in the end, your Lord will keep everyone one of his promises at exactly the right time. Just hang on.
Amen.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Amen. - Rom. 15:13
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