God calls Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God plants His kingdom in the life of Abraham. He nurtures it in Isaac, who marries his dear Rebekah, who is pregnant with twins. And it is evidently God’s intent to bring that kingdom to fruition through Jacob, the younger brother, rather than the expected firstborn son of the promise of the covenant. I’m telling you, some boys are clearly on the Lord’s radar, even before birth. John the Immerser leaped in his mother’s womb when he heard the voice of Jesus’ mother. That’s how zealous he was. David was knit together in the secret places, and he became a man after God’s own heart. Jeremiah was known and consecrated and appointed as a prophet even before he was formed in the womb. And Jacob, . . . Jacob was loved.
The two boys were, well, being boys, in utter competitive combat even while in the womb. You know, fighting to see who gets to go first. Rebekah is great with child—great with children—and she feels more than just kicking going on in her. It’s a wrestling match, a no-holds-barred, full-body-contact sibling rivalry going on right in her belly. The Lord tells her (by the way, it’s nice to know that God speaks to women once in a while) that the boys are two nations fighting inside her and she believes Him. Because after 8 ½ months of this, it sure feels like two nations dancing on her bladder all hours of the day and night.
So finally, the day comes when it’s time to clear them out of there and the first one out is red and hairy. So they name him Harry. (In Hebrew being translated Esau, which means, hairy. See, I told you.) But Harry’s not even all the way out yet when his little brother makes his appearance, holding on to his brother’s heel. It’s like he was saying in his birth, I will not let you go until I get your blessing. They called the boy Gotcha. (Scramble the letters a bit, and you get the name Jacob.)
Hairy and Gotcha, Esau and Jacob, grew up being twins who were as different as two boys can be. Esau loved to hunt and go camping. By which I mean killing big game with his bare hands and doing wilderness survival. His daddy Isaac, who loved venison, favored Harry. But Jacob was a momma’s boy. And Rebekah doted on him. (Perhaps we can also find it comforting to know that God notices men who are not boiling over with testosterone. But let’s not get sidetracked.) So daddy Isaac and momma Rebekah, made for a wonderfully romantic love story, but a terribly dysfunctional parenting couple.
Perhaps you know some of Jacob’s escapades. His zeal. Or ambition. Or both. How he plotted to get his brother’s birthright by trading a mess of beans today for a double portion of the estate down the road. And you know that it was Esau who was wrong, and Jacob who apparently acted by faith to gain all that God had promised him. And perhaps you recall how Jacob deceived his father to receive his blessing, and how in spite of the clear fact that he lied and cheated, God never told Jacob that he was in the wrong for what he did. And perhaps you also know about how Jacob, being a clever boy, perceived that his brother was looking to throttle him, and that, being the outdoors type that Harry was, he was likely to be able to do it. And how he followed his daddy’s advice to do like he did and find a fine young woman from his uncle Laban’s family, and make a good life for himself. And how Esau went and married one of Ishmael’s daughters, which sealed his being out of favor with his daddy.
Likewise, perhaps you recall how Jacob had a strange dream at Bethel and made a strange vow that if God would bless him he would make Yahweh his own God. And you recall how Jacob found Laban and made arrangements to work for seven years in order to marry the beautiful Rachel whom he loved (and who was, of course, Laban’s second-born daughter), and how Laban deceived poor Gotcha by sneaking him ugly-eyed Leah, and how the Wrestler Jacob had to work another seven years to marry the woman he really loved. And by then he had two wives, if you’re keeping score at home, and a dozen boys. And you know about how Jacob fooled Laban and was fooled by Laban and how the always-perceptive Jacob knew that his uncle was feeling a bit unfriendly towards his favorite nephew who was also his son-in-law twice over. And you know how Jacob ran away, and how Rachel stole her daddy’s idol and deceived her daddy to keep it secret, and how Jacob and Laban made a treaty at Mizpah. And you know how Jacob heard that Esau was coming with 300 men to meet him, so Jacob sent a bunch of bribes ahead to soften Esau’s heart, and then he sent his wives and children, with his favorite wife in the back, and how Jacob himself snuck around in the back, hoping his brother would be too tired to kill his little brother by then.
And perhaps you recall how that night Jacob wrestled with a man who turned out to be an angel, and how Jacob’s hip was wrested out of joint but he kept clinging to that man in the night, telling him that he STILL would not let go of his ankle until he blessed him. And how then he found out that this was an angel he had been wrestling with, which was even scarier than facing his big brother. Whew!
But, perhaps like me you are surprised at how God did not scold Jacob for all that deception and ambition. Instead, that morning God changed his name from Gotcha to Israel (which means, Got God). Told him, You have struggled with both God and men and have overcome. That’s right, Jacob the girly-man, Jacob the deceiver, Jacob had fought God and won.
And then you know about how Jacob returned to Bethel and gave up his idols and pledged himself to God there and set up an Ebenezer stone to mark the place where God had spoken to him. And perhaps you also know that Jacob and his family were still just as messed up after that wonderful vow as they were before. I guess I’m saying that everything didn’t just fall into place for old Israel once he found God. And he didn’t change his basic character. He was still a Rascal. But now he was God’s Rascal. Chosen even before birth to receive grace. Just as his granddaddy Abraham and his daddy Isaac had been chosen. Those Rascals. Just as for some mysterious reason I myself was chosen. Speaking of Rascals.
And so, I have to come to peace with this old rascal, Jacob. And maybe this is the key to it: God had called Abraham out of the blue, and promised more than just earthly heritage to him. God had sustained the promise and the call through Isaac. And Jacob was somehow called, even before he was born, to be the one through whom that godly line would fall. And in all that hunger and grappling that he did, the whole time he was really hungering and grasping for something that he could not even name yet. It was a kingdom which it turns out was NOT of this world.
By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. Hebrews 11:21
I guess Jacob’s story causes me to cut folks a bit of slack when it comes to their zealous worldly pursuits. It makes me realize that perhaps they are really just misguided zealots. Like my buddy Simon the zealot. Like the Pharisee Saul. Like the young ambitious fisherman named John, who always grabbed for all the gusto he could find in life, surprised by joy when he discovered that this whole while those longings were not for anything that could be found on this planet. All were saints-in-the-rough who maybe didn’t need so much an anchor to stop their movement as a rudder to redirect it.
What a funny thing is spiritual inertia. Those who are zealous for the things of this earth will continue to be zealous for God when they learn the truth. But the complacent, the self-satisfied, the spiritually-lazy, they are the ones who are hard to get started in the first place.
Can I get an amen? As Jesus said,
there is more joy in heaven for one sinner who repents than for many righteous people who never know that they need to repent.
Amen? Amen. It’s not your birth order, or your appearance, that God respects. God looks on the heart, and even today He is scanning the earth, seeking to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. Let me ask you, brothers and sisters: when the blazing beam of God’s eyes scans the earth, does He see you? Or does your camouflaged heart blend in with its surroundings? When the one with the double-edged sword in his mouth speaks, when that blade swings, has it cut you and then healed you? Or did you dodge the gaze and jump the blade and run your own way?
Paul wrote to the Romans: never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Maybe Paul knew how easy it is to sell your heavenly birthright for a mess of earthly pottage. How easy it is to lose your ambition and rest on your reputation for having been alive, not realizing that you have dried up and died on the inside.
Gotcha. The Rascal. Jacob. The Deceiver. The Deceived. Israel. The Ambitious. A violent man who took hold of the kingdom by violence.
May there be more in his train.
Amen. Amen.
A man had two sons. One was hot. The other was cold. Which son are you?
“The eyes of the Lord roam
throughout all the earth,
seeking to strengthen
those whose hearts
are fully committed to Him.
The Father is seeking
those who will worship
in spirit and in truth.
Lord, when You seek, see me
Find me when You find what You seek.”