"Jacob said, “I will not let you go till you bless me.”  So he said to him, “What is your name?”  And he said “Jacob”.  Then the man said: “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” 
” 

   Gen. 28:12-13

Jacob is the consummate striver…
 …striving with his brother for his birthright.
 …striving with his father for a blessing intended for Esau
 …striving with his uncle Laban to win the hand of his daughter Rachel in marriage
 …striving in his work to get ahead, to become materially wealthy
…and today his biggest match of all - striving with God

Now, on the surface it would seem that Jacob has it all!  His striving has really paid off - he has his brother’s blessing, he has wealth beyond measure (thousands of sheep and goats), he has the girl of his dreams, Rachel, and her sister, Leah.  And he had many children.  But none of this has brought Jacob the satisfaction he’s been looking for in life.  There was still something missing.  All of his striving has left him completely discontent.
I saw a bumper sticker once that said: “The one with the most toys in the end wins.”  It is a commentary on the rat race that Jacob and many other strivers have been running for so long.  What happens when you get to the end of the race, look at the trophies you’ve acquired and aren’t satisfied?  What happens when you realize the finish line prize isn’t worthy of the sacrifice and effort of the race?

That’s what happens to Jacob.  He has it all…and he has ‘nada.’  The real prize - his family, his father’s respect, his brother’s love, his mother’s company, have been sacrificed in this pursuit of selfish gain and Jacob begins to realize it wasn’t worth it.  So the weary wanderer turns his eyes towards home.

Now home is more than a physical place where your parents live.  Home is also a spiritual place…it’s the place you most belong.  When you are home you know it because you no longer have to strive…you are accepted as you are at home.  Home is where we are loved not so much for what we do but for who we are.  Doing doesn’t matter as much as being.  Sometimes people searching for a church will say, ‘When I came to this church I felt like I had come home.’  It has to do with being accepted as you are.

Jacob longs to find that place…he just wants to go home.  And he knows that Laban’s home will never be his home no matter how long he stays.  And anyone who has ever had to live with their in-laws will understand that – the in-laws home is never going to be your home.  And Jacob, God bless him, stayed there 14 years!  Mind you, it’s been a nice arrangement for Jacob - he’s done very well there, but it’s not home.   Jacob can’t ignore the longing for home any longer…so he decides to return from where he came. No more running… no more striving …time has come to go home and face his brother. 

Now Jacob is a little nervous about this meeting – after all, this is the brother who vowed to kill Jacob for stealing his birthright.  Esau is the reason Jacob’s been hiding out at Laban’s place all these years.  So as Jacob heads home, he does so with some trepidation.  And as they travel, his anxiety increases dramatically when he gets news that Esau is racing towards him on horseback along with 400 of his friends!  It doesn’t sound good at all!  Should he run?  No, no, refuses to run…he’s been running all his life…it’s time to face his brother.  So Jacob divides the people with him and his flocks into two companies thinking if Esau attacks one company the other has a chance to escape.  Then sends ahead a portion of his herd of animals as a gift to Esau, hoping to appease his brother’s anger.  And the night before he goes to meet Esau, Jacob sends everyone away – across the river and he spends the night alone on the other side. 

He’s afraid.  This could be his last night alive.  It is a night of reckoning for Jacob.  And in the darkness of that night a stranger comes to him and begins to wrestle with him.  Now this is Jacob’s worst nightmare.  He’s no wrestler…he’s a runner, he’s a knifer, a schemer, a shyster but face to face combat isn’t his thing.  But what do you do when you are attacked?  Jacob defends himself best he can.  So a lifetime of lying and deceit leads to a down and dirty wrestling match.

This match has been a long time coming for a long time because Jacob has been running a long time …not only running from his brother but from his God.  And the biggest struggles of our lives are spiritual struggles.  A person might struggle with an addiction to alcohol but at the core of it, the struggle is really with a lack of self-worth.  A person might struggle with a nasty divorce but at the core of it, the struggle might be an inability to make a life-long commitment to another.  Jacob’s struggle with his brother Esau is more than sibling rivalry, it’s a spiritual struggle – and his struggle to believe what God has said is true.

Have you ever had an all-night wrestling match like Jacob?  Ever gone to bed and struggled with something so long and so hard that you woke up more tired than when you went to sleep?  Spiritual crisis can really drain a person.  And Jacob’s struggle is that he’s never quite been able to accept the fact that God has blessed him.  When he looks in the mirror he can’t see himself as blessed.  He can see it in his brother – a big, strong, outgoing, hairy man… athletic, good looking, and skilled hunter.  Blessing is written all over Esau!  So Jacob thinks if there’s going to be any blessing in his life, he’s going have to make it happen.  And sometimes we are the last to see our own blessing!

There’s an interesting scene in the movie Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.  He plays Edward, a rich tycoon and she plays Vivian, a hooker on the streets of New York.  They meet and fall in love and in one scene he questions her profession and tries to convince her she better than that.  He says to her:

“I think you are a very bright, very special woman.”
She says: “The bad stuff is easier to believe.  You ever notice that?”

The biggest struggles we ever have are spiritual ones…like believing we are children of God.  The Brief Statement of Faith of the PCUSA begins this way:  “In life and in death we belong to God.  Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone we worship and serve.”  Those words flow off our tongues like melted butter, but they can take a lifetime to believe, to live into.  Like Jacob, we often don’t believe this either.  We think we have to strive for everything we’re going to get.

So Jacob wrestles with this person all night and as dawn arrives the one he wrestled with says, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.”  And Jacob refuses saying; “I won’t let you go till you bless me.”  So he asks him: “What is your name?”  And he says, “Jacob,” which is an interesting change…last time Jacob was asked his name he said, “I am Esau” but this time he reveals his true identity.  He gives his own name – Jacob, which means ‘striver’, so Jacob is fessing up to his true identity here…confessing that he is a striver.   So the one he wrestles with says “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”  So Jacob has a new name – Israel, which means ‘one who strives with God’.  Now how did Jacob prevail?  He learned how to cling to God amidst the struggles of life.  That’s a true blessing isn’t it?  Too many people go through a struggle in life and don’t cling to God so they emerge from it with a name like Cynical, Angry, or Ungrateful.  But those who go through the struggle and cling to God come out blessed with a name like Cherished, Hopeful, or Faithful.  That’s the true blessing…to come through a struggle with a stronger faith than before.   Interesting that one day this will be the name of God’s people…they will be Israelites ‘those who strive with God’.   Jacob’s new name is our new name.

Jacob is reunited with his brother Esau the next day and that is a blessing too.  Jacob expected to get what he deserved – a severe beating and perhaps even death, but Esau runs to his brother and embraces him and they both weep.   Jacob tells Esau that seeing him is like seeing the face of God…and it is true – because Esau has come not bearing a sword seeking vengeance but come seeking reconciliation.  He doesn’t even want the offering of sheep and goats that Jacob has for him – he has more than enough of his own…he too has been blessed.  But Jacob insists and Esau accepts.  So we see that these twins have done a lot of growing since they were last together.  Jacob was greedy and conniving while Esau was angry and vengeful.  Now Jacob is generous and repentant, while Esau is forgiving and loving.  Here Jacob displays perfect repentance here while his brother displays perfect forgiveness and that goes a long way to restoring their relationship.  Sin separates us but repentance and forgiveness brings us back together.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Forrest Gump.  The story follows the life of a simple but deeply spiritual man named Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks.  His life has a profound affect upon many people’s lives, not least being a free-spirited young lady named Jenny whom he ends up marrying.  Forrest is a Christ-figure in many ways. 

One of the people that Forrest touches along the way is an officer he meets during a tour in Viet Nam, Lieutenant Daniel Walker.  Walker thinks his only identity, his only claim to existence he deserves is to die on the battlefield like his father and grandfather before him.  Forrest takes that destiny away from him with a heroic rescue from certain death in the Viet Nam jungle.  Lt. Walker is anything but appreciative because dying would have been easier.  Now that he’s alive he must wrestling with who he is and what his life is really all about…and he must do it with one leg missing.  There is a poignant scene in the film where Walker climbs up the rigging of his shrimp boat amidst a hurricane and challenges God to battle.  It is a scene right out of Genesis 32 –Lieutenant Walker is Jacob the striver who wrestles with God and prevails to find new meaning for his life.  In the end the lieutenant limps into a new life on an artificial leg.

There is a little bit of Lieutenant Daniel Walker in each of us.  Oh, we may not have gone to Viet Nam, we may not have lost a leg in battle, but we can identify with his wrestling match with God.  We too wrestle with God …and our wrestling is not a sign of our lack of faith, rather it is a sign of our faith.  It is precisely because we believe that we have this struggle at all!  The message of Forrest Gump and the message of Jacob is to prevail in that struggle…you may limp at the end of it, but your faith will prevail and be stronger as a result.

Someone once asked me whether Jacob was a bad person.  I said No, he’s not a bad person, but neither is he perfect.  But God chose him, and loved him anyway, and God remained true to him even though he didn’t always remain true to God.  And therein lies the good news for all of us “Jacobs.”  I think St. Augustine sums it all up best:  He said:  "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you ...”

Amen