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There’s a famous song by the Beatles, it goes like this:
It’s been a hard day’s night,
And I’ve been working like a dog.
It’s been a hard day’s night,
I should be sleeping like a log.
But when I get home to you,
I find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright.
When I’m home
Everything seems to be right.
When I’m home,
Feeling you holding me tight, tight, yeah.
Home is a place of rest and peace. That’s what home is supposed to be.
We all need a home to go to. The question is: what kind of home will you be going to?
What determines the kind of home you go to is HOW you go home.
Do you go home in peace? Or do you go with all sorts of emotions and baggage?
If you’ve been stressed out, anxious, angry from the traffic and you bring that home, there won’t be peace at home.
You will disturb the peace of everyone at home.
This is true at a deeper level too.
Indigenous people in Canada were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to residential schools.
They endured a lot of pain and hurt. They faced abuse. They experienced cruelty, violence, physical and emotional harm.
When they returned home, many of them brought all of this pain with them. Their homes were no longer places of rest and peace.
Injustice disrupts the peace of others. Sioux Valley – bring peace, prayer for God’s lasting peace.
How you come home is important.
In today’s story, Jacob is going home.
He left home on very bad terms as a young man. He left because he had to run away from his brother Esau.
He ran away after robbing Esau of the two most important things: the birthright and father’s blessing. Jacob used trickery to rob Esau.
He lived many hard years away from home because of his wrongdoing. God blessed him nonetheless, and he became very rich. But he was still living on someone else’s land far away from home.
After twenty years, it was time to come home.
The question was: how would he come home?
By coming home, he would have to face Esau. He would have to face up to the things he did to his brother.
He sent word to Esau that he was coming home. Esau was coming to meet Jacob with four hundred men.
In today’s passage, we see Jacob sending everyone ahead of him.
The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone. (Genesis 32:22-24)
Jacob was left alone.
This is a famous story. Much has been written about it. But one thing that’s clear is that Jacob did not have peace in his heart.
I imagine what it might have been like all alone at the river.
Alone at night. Alone with his thoughts. Alone with his guilt. Alone with regret.
If he remained alone all night, I think it would be easy to fall into despair. The weight of regret and guilt can take you down a dark tunnel.
That’s why many people don’t want to be alone with their thoughts. It’s just easier to distract yourself and entertain yourself, rather than face up to your deepest fears, guilt and regrets. It can be too heavy.
But the remarkable thing is, Jacob was not left alone.
Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. (Genesis 32:24)
He was not left alone. He was forced to wrestle.
I think he was wrestling all night with who he was. He was wrestling with the things he had done to survive and get ahead. The person he had become to succeed. The regrets and consequences of his choices and actions.
He was wrestling to lift the weight of guilt and find peace.
Jacob would not let go. The man asked Jacob to let go. This was his response:
“I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26)
The story goes on:
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.”Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. (Genesis 32:27-29)
This too is very mysterious.
Jacob wanted to be blessed. But before he was blessed, his name was changed.
He was no longer Jacob. Jacob means supplanter, the one who grabs by the heel. That’s who he had been his whole life. That’s what caused all the hardship in his life. That’s the Jacob who left home.
But now he was Israel: the one who strives with God, or the one with whom God strives.
He was going home as a changed man.
I think the blessing was peace. He could go home in peace as a new person.
I find it reassuring that the man came to wrestle with Jacob. Jacob realized afterward that it was God.
God does not leave you alone to face your fears and guilt. There’s a line from a song:
Great is your faithfulness, oh God
You wrestle with the sinner’s heart
That is what God does.
With every action, there is a reaction. It’s almost as if God comes with the action to force a reaction. God tugs at your heart, forcing your heart to respond.
If you’re left all by yourself, then you can just fall into darkness and despair. Your heart can grow numb and cold.
But when God wrestles with you, it forces your heart to react. The heart has to move. When the heart moves, true repentance is possible.
Jesus came to take your guilt away. But it doesn’t happen without any change in you. Jesus forces your heart to wrestle with your deepest guilt, fears and regrets.
Only then can the heart experience true grace. The German pastor Bonhoeffer calls that costly grace.
Not cheap grace. It leaves a mark on you.
Jacob had a permanent limp after that. But he had peace as a new person.
I am thankful that God doesn’t leave us alone.
When you allow God to wrestle with you, you will emerge as a new person. You will go home as a new person in peace.
In Christ, you are a new creation and have the peace that surpasses all understanding.
How you come home is so important.
At our KSM Bible studies, many people are in their 80’s and even 90’s. I can see that they are preparing themselves to go to their eternal homes.
They remind me of my grandmother who passed away over twenty years ago.
She lived a very difficult life. She became widowed as a young woman when her husband died during the Korean War. She had to raise four children all by herself.
Church and faith were the bedrocks of her life. She never missed a day of church.
By the time her cancer was discovered, it was too late. For the last two weeks or so of her life, she became very quiet. She didn’t say a word to anyone. It was so unlike her.
When her minister visited her, she finally spoke. She began to groan out to him, saying “pastor, pastor!” She was crying out to him. I had never seen her expressive like that before.
The minister sang some hymns, read some Bible verses, gave a short sermon and said a prayer. After that, her face seemed so at peace. She was smiling to everyone. Everyone felt so happy around her.
She passed away two days after that.
Looking back, I realize that during the time she was quiet, she was probably wrestling inside. She was coming to terms with the end of her life on earth and preparing to go home.
When the minister came, it was her final plea to God for his blessing. In the end, she received the blessing of peace. Her face was so different after that.
I believe she was a new person, even at that age. She was a true child of God going home to her Father.
St. Paul said this:
For we know that, if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)
Even after our life here on earth, we have an eternal home to go to.
We all need to go home.
Home to sleep. Home to your family. Home to God.
How you come home is the most important thing.
At some point, you need to face your demons and your sins. God is there to wrestle with you. To take your guilt upon himself. And to bless you with peace.
Come home. Come home in peace.
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