Our Real Selves

If you are a visitor with us — or if you’ve been coming kind of off and on, you should know that we are in the final two weeks of our fall series called, What do you really want. Throughout the past several weeks we’ve looked at some core human drivers — the desire for freedom, for community, for authenticity, for love.

Today and next week we’re examining the final core issues. What do we really want? We want to know who we are. We want to know and be known. And then, finally, we want to live in peace with those around us. We want harmony with our brother and with our sister.

Come to find out God shares those desires. And much of the Bible is filled with story after story about how people have tried to satisfy those desires and what God did to bring them about.

For these final 2 weeks we zero in on one character: Jacob. And we see what happens when he comes face to face with who he is and then how that plays out with his brother.

So let’s just start right in.

The question of “who am I really” had dogged Jacob for most of his life. In fact I would go so far to say that answering that question — his quest for identity was the central theme of Jacob’s life.

You remember that Jacob is actually a twin. He and Esau are fraternal twins. The research on twins — how they are connected at a deep emotional level, their shared genetic code, gives us modern readers a different kind of insight into these characters. They are, in some ways two sides of a coin, connected in ways primal and mysterious. Psychologists say that one of the earliest understanding a twin has is that they are connected to the other.

Jacob already shares a internal genetic identity with his brother — but that isn’t enough.

This slide is Rembrandt’s image of one of the most famous scenes in the Bible concerning Jacob — which one is it? Go ahead and holler it out. Of course.

Or as today’s artists might render it. (!)

Jacob the younger twin, tricks his father into believing that he is actually Esau — the older brother — assuming Esau’s smell, his skin, his voice, his hair. Jacob makes himself into someone he’s not.

In retaliation for having his identity stolen, Esau vows to kill his brother Jacob. Upon which Jacob runs away taking shelter with his maternal uncle, Laban.

Jacob labors for Laban for 21 years- picking up two wives and some before the voice of the Lord calls him to return home.

And where we pick up the story in Genesis 32 is Jacob’s obedience to return home. He gathers his wives, and children, the profits from his long indenture to Laban, his other good, servants and household items and sets off Canaan.

Back to his brother he deceived, to the people he lied to and to the father he tricked. (Don’t forget that — Isaac is still alive).

He’s not too far off when Jacob’s foreboding becomes a certainty: Messengers return telling Jacob that Esau is “already coming to meet you and 400 men are with him!”

“Jacob was exceedingly afraid and was distressed.” Gen. 32:4–8

Jacob divides his entourage into two groups thinking if his brother strikes at least one group may stay alive. Then Jacob prays reminding God that He promised him safe passage.

He receives no reply.

Desperate now, Jacob sends a massive bribe — goats, kids, ewes, rams, camels, cows, bulls colts. He throws everything he has to appease Esau. Then, he sends his wives and children on to cross the Jabbock river in three waves.

Until finally “Jacob was left alone.” Gen. 32:24

Alone. Our English word comes from Middle ages -

Al One. (all one). To be separate. Solitary. Unaccompanied. Al one. In the Hebrew the word is bad.

Points 1: If you want to know who you are — the essence of your identity, your core self — That “you who you are” when you’re not performing, pretending, or preening. The You stripped to what some call the essential self — then you have to get “all one”.

This can be difficult when we are largely always connected. It almost has to become a discipline doesn’t it? To make a concerted effort to be alone. While life is a contact sport — we are individual decision makers — and ultimately we are responsible for ourselves — I face myself (and my God) by myself. And you do too.

Some of the most vivid scenes in the Bible concern Individuals Al-One.

Moses — alone — goes tremblingly up Mt. Sinai before receiving the books of the law. Jonah alone in the darkness of the whale before he fulfills his destiny Elijah alone at the mouth of the cave until the “still small voice” of God speaks, Jesus — — alone — in the Garden of Gethsemane, while his companions sleep. Alone on the cross against the growing darkness of the sky.

Alone all of them face an ultimate truth about themselves, and their God. It’s here — in this landscape that Jacob’s struggle for identity takes place.

We have to decipher one more word

Abaq — is the word translated “wrestle”. Abaq literally means dust — but it’s used as an image — like “to be covered in dust” or “to turn to dust”. In other places it has the sense of dissolution, insignificance, death.

As one commentator on the text writes it, “It is as if we were observers from a distant vantage point and saw a man alone, Jacob, enveloped in a cloud of dust. We cannot see what occurs within that cloud, we cannot tell what he is doing, we see only the dust raised. (Peter Prezele, Our Father’s Wells, p. 186).

“Jacob was left alone…and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” Gen. 32:24

Into this place of aloneness, someone comes — someone who Jacob can grasp but cannot name — a being, a spirit, a divine messenger, God? — Jacob really couldn’t say exactly.

But it’s someone who demands to know his name — “What is your name?” the angels asks, forcing Jacob to speak truthfully.

And when the dust clears, Jacob is still standing. Wounded. Yes. Limping in fact.

Jacob — whose identity will now be called Israel — bears a wound that marks him for life as one touched by a superior being.

Real Jacob + Real God = Real Blessing

I’m not trying to be trite.

This is what emerges from that dust-bowl by the Jabbock creek. Alone Jacob faces himself and he faces the One who has always known who he really was. The God from whom nothing is hidden. A man of dust, Jacob’s life should have ended that night in the dust. But it doesn’t. Instead when the wrestling stops and the dust settles, he limps forward — this time not with a blessing he stole but with a blessing burned into his very muscle.

The real Jacob meets the real God and receives the real blessing.

I suppose every public speaker is going to start quoting the wisdom of this guy — Joe Maddon. “Don’t worry about making mistakes. I keep preaching freedom among the group — go out there and be yourself. I want them to go out there not trying to please, but to play. When a player finally shows up — and they are just themselves they are liberated.. Seriously. You might have seen the body for a few years but the brain has not arrived yet. So when a player is liberated — in a baseball sense — then you can finally find out what a player can do. I believe it’s when you know you can screw up, that you screw up less.”

The real Jacob shows up, meets the real God and grasps the real blessing.

What do we really want?