This sermon was preached at St. John's Lutheran, Karoonda (9 am) and Trinity Lutheran, Tailem Bend (11 am).
I remember as a
child looking around a Christian bookstore, and they had posters for
sale. And one of them, as long as I'm remembering right, was that
poster of a cat hanging from a branch with the caption “hang in
there”. Even as a child I thought that was out of place there.
But if you ever see a poster of Jacob wrestling with the Lord, and
the caption reads, “hang in there” - leave that place
immediately. That's not why Jacob wrestled with the Lord. But
because you have the words that he did, you can say:
Holding
on to Christ is seeking forgiveness of sins only and always from him.
Transition: Yes, this reading is all about Christ.
To start, the man who wrestled with Jacob was Christ. But this is
Christ, the eternal Son of God, before he became incarnate in the
womb of the virgin Mary. There he assumes the form of a man for a
time, but that's not what he does in the womb of the virgin Mary. In
that womb he receives his human nature, which is taken up into his
Godhead – his being completely and eternally God. Because of this,
wherever his human nature is to be found his divine nature is to be
found, and vice versa, not just for a time, but everlastingly. This
is what we confess in the Nicene Creed, that Jesus, who is “very
God of very God, begotten not made” is the same Jesus who “was
conveived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and was made
man.”
And Jacob confesses this, that he has wrestled God. First off, he
has previously seen God in a vision, the one we call 'Jacob's
Ladder', where the Lord is at the top of the ladder and makes
promises to Jacob. And he has seen God's angels just earlier on the
same trip he was now on. He knows this is possible. Second, he has
seen that this man very easily pops his hip out of place with a
touch. Third, at the end he names the place Peniel, which means the
face of God, and he says, “For I have seen God face to face, and
yet my life has been delivered.”
But
he holds on to Christ in a very surprising way. “When
the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip
socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
26
Then he said, "Let me go, for the day has broken." But
Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." 27
And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said,
"Jacob." 28
Then he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but
Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have
prevailed."
” For holding on
to Christ happens when it seems Christ himself is against you. It
seems as if God himself is against Jacob. He is returning home with
the family he received, returning home to where his brother Esau is.
That's the brother he cheated out of the blessing from their father
Isaac. That brother. And he has just heard that Esau was coming to
meet him with four hundred men. Jacob was “greatly afraid and
distressed.” At that point it seemed like all of God's promises to
him would come to nothing. And so he divides his camp, sends his
family across the river, and is left by himself. But not for long.
And yet it seems like things go from bad to worse, as this man
wrestles with Jacob all throughout the night. It's as though even
God is out to get him. But Jacob doesn't fight with his strength; he
fights with God's promise.
This is the same Jacob who had heard
directly from God's mouth in the vision of the angels ascending and
descending on the ladder that, “I
am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The
land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 14
Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall
spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the
south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the
earth be blessed. 15
Behold, 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.”
He had that promise. So he knew whatever he was experiencing was no
reason to look elsewhere than that promise. But he does this in
great weakness, and not by physical strength (for how can God defeat
you when you hold him to his own word? Isn't this exactly what
pleases him?)
That he does this is no reason that you should look for blessing
apart from Christ. You have no greater terrors than he had, no
greater anxiety, and it can't seem that God is against you more than
it seemed so to him. This is called when God is against God, and it
exercises the saints in their faith. For when God seems to be
dealing with you in a way that goes against the promises you have in
his Word, your sinful flesh would trust what you can see, and with
great moaning as well. But, and this is how Luther describes this,
it's just at these times that God is in fact playing with you most
kindly and gently. This is the play of a father with a child, who
holds an apple before the child just out of reach. The child doesn't
turn away or fall into despair, because they know despite
appearances, that the father means only good. When your heavenly
Father sends his own Son to take flesh for your sake, you know the
same. You know Christ your dear Lord wants to bless.
But your sinful flesh doesn't know that rightly. Your heart defines
a blessing as something you want which God had better give. But it's
not a blessing because you want it. It's a blessing when it's what
God wants to give. So when it comes to wanting total happiness all
the time, or amazing spiritual feelings and experiences, these aren't
blessings you're called to look for, because these aren't promises
given to you in God's Word.
Beyond appearance, Christ your Savior deals with you in a familiar
and kind way. Jacob confesses that he has seen the Lord face to
face? Well, Christ our Lord came to dwell face to face with his
creation, so that he might be able to die in your place with your
sins (and because he has done this, he deals with you face to face,
and yet you still live).
And we will see him face to face, but he is no less present for his
Church now. You will see him face to face in heaven, despite your
death. In fact, despite all appearances, death is, as the hymn says,
“but the gate to life immortal”. And yet he is still present for
his Church now (despite all appearances) according to his Word,
Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.
Holding
on to Christ seeks forgiveness only from him and always from him.
Holding onto Christ seeks forgiveness only from him. As I said, this
is his favorite game. Luther said, “To
the flesh it cannot seem otherwise than an evil, troublesome, and
gloomy will [when God seems to be against us], but when we are
weeping, God is smiling in a most kindly manner, and He takes
pleasure in those who fear Him and hope in His mercy”
Your Lord wants you to hold him to his words, to hope only in him,
because that's when he's beaten at his favorite game – that you
look only to his blood and cross for the forgiveness you need. The
blood of Jesus is thus the best news you can hear, that it was shed
for you. No other news is as good.
Holding
on to Christ seeks forgiveness always from him. Holding on to Christ
is not the same thing as “hanging in there”. It's very specific,
as specific as saying “I am baptized, I have been absolved.”
Again, Luther says, “If
God Himself appeared to me in His majesty and said: “You are not
worthy of My grace; I will change My plan and not keep My promise to
you,” I would not have to yield to Him, but it would be necessary
to fight most vehemently against God Himself. It is as Job says:
“Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him”. If He should cast me
into the depths of hell and place me in the midst of devils, I would
still believe that I would be saved because I have been baptized, I
have been absolved, I have received the pledge of my salvation, the
body and blood of the Lord in the Supper, Therefore I want to see and
hear nothing else, but I shall live and die in this faith, whether
God or an angel or the devil says the contrary. I think that this is
the true treatment of this passage. For Jacob himself will explain it
in this way in the end when he will say: “And yet my life is
preserved.” This picture of the conflicts and struggles in the
saints is full of consolation.”
So it's not about what your heart decides that it wants. But Christ gives the heart that says, “Of course I want this forgiveness. What else could I want but that? What is more valuable in heaven and earth than his blood shed for me?” [Aside: this heart also says the same concerning every good work and every Word from his mouth.]
And this is worship: receiving from him, seeking forgiveness only
from him, faith fighting against despair. This is the receiving that
is lifelong (just like the garden dries out without water, you can
dry out by not receiving.) This is so much better than “Why don't
you go to church?”, because it's saying, “Dear Christian flowers
need lots of watering.”
Holding on to Christ makes a confession about him, the Father, and
the Spirit. To hold on to Christ is to confess who he is that you're
holding on to. And to confess him is surrounded by confessing the
Father and the Spirit, just like we confess in the Creed.
He keeps his promises, despite what you see. This is a confession
that you know what God thinks of you. You don't know how God thinks
about you? Just quote Once in Royal David's City: “He came down to
earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all, and his shelter was a
stable, and his cradle was a stall. With the poor, and mean and
lowly, lived on earth, our Savior holy.”
To
confess him is to confess: He is hands on with you: The Lord lets
you grasp him as well, and when you won't let him go without blessing
you, you're playing his favorite game (listening to the Scripture,
receiving and grasping the Sacrament by eating and drinking, and
looking for blessing by what his Word says and not by what you see
and feel (like an out of socket hip – it only made him dig in more;
because that's a confession
that the Lord does keep his promises of forgiveness of sins, life and
salvation).
Conclusion: Despite how things look, Christ your Lord remains true
to his Word that he is present to be grasped by faith. Amen.
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