December 6

The Blessing and the Limp

Jacob sent everyone he loved across the river and stayed behind. His two wives, his eleven sons, the servants and the herds he had spent twenty years gathering, all of it went over the ford of the Jabbok in the dark while he waited alone on the near bank.

He had reason to dread the morning. Word had come back that Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred men, and Esau had every cause to arrive angry. Jacob had taken his brother's blessing by lying to a blind father, then run for his life and stayed gone for twenty years.

A man comes, and they wrestle until daybreak. Genesis does not say where he came from or announce who he is.

Then the man touches Jacob's hip and the fight is decided. Jacob cannot win, and he holds on anyway.

Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day. When he saw that he didn't prevail against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained as he wrestled.

The man said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking."

Jacob said, "I won't let you go unless you bless me."

He said to him, "What is your name?"

He said, "Jacob."

He said, "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed." He blessed him there.

Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for he said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

Genesis 32:24-30 (selection)

"What is your name?" the man asks, and the last time a blessing turned on that question, Jacob stood in front of his father and answered with his brother's name. This time he gives his own, and the blessing follows.

The new name is explained by the text itself: he has fought with God and with men and has come through. Jacob's grip on God in the dark, wounded and outmatched and refusing to let go, is rewarded with a name his descendants would carry.

He did not come away unmarked. The sun rose as he crossed over, and he was limping. Blessing and injury came from the same hand on the same night, and he carried both across the river to meet his brother.

The God who came within arm's reach at that river went on coming closer. Advent is the account of how near he was finally willing to be, born in a body that could be lifted and fed and held.

Some of what we bring to God this month has sat in our hands a long time without moving: a rift in a family that nobody has found words for, a diagnosis with no clear road out of it, a decision where every option costs something real. Jacob's night gives that kind of praying a place to stand, because Scripture is willing to call that struggle faith.

Pray plainly, and say the hard part. Ask God for what you have been asking him for, in the words you would actually use. Keep hold of him while you wait, because the morning came and Jacob was still holding on.

Lord, you are strong enough for my honest prayers. I bring you what has not moved, and I ask you to bless it. Hold me through the dark hours. I will not let you go.