Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, September 24, 2023
by Madison Johnston, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: It is precisely during the times we feel furthest from God when God gives us the chance to experience God’s presence and God’s grace.
Both of these texts tell a story about a “dark night of the soul,”—explicit struggle and deep suffering that manifest in one, tangible and identifiable moment of crisis. For Jacob and for Jesus alike, the struggle can be boiled down to fear, and the solution to deliverance. For Jacob and for Jesus, alike, the suffering seems to be something that only they understand. (You’ll notice that both are surrounded by their loved ones to start, but end up fighting—grieving—without those loved ones present.) For Jacob and Jesus alike, conflict manifests with God, directly. Both of them know what they want from God. But both of them end up forced into a state of radical acceptance—into recognizing that what they want is not what they are going to get.
Often, not getting what we want feels like the end of the line. It feels like defeat—sometimes not getting what we want even makes us feel like God isn’t listening to us. But both of these stories make it clear that God does listen to us in our trials as much as in our successes and in our terror as much as in our comfort.
In fact, more than just listening, God engages with us in those trials. God shows up with praise, promises and blessings in our seasons of fear. God gives us the chance to experience God more authentically and more viscerally than we ever have before in times of struggle, because that’s when God knows we need that chance—that encounter—the most. This portion of Genesis tells us that Jacob “[saw] God face to face” in his wrestling. If we think about that in different words, we realize that Jacob had never sensed God so clearly or been so in touch with the person and essence of God as he was when he at his lowest. When he was lacking them, Jacob understood God’s promises of provision more deeply than he ever had before, and he held God accountable to those promises by demanding a blessing.
God took Jacob’s struggle seriously. While God might not have been the cause of Jacob’s fear, God recognized and legitimized it, and literally absorbed a portion of it on the ground with Jacob. And then God blessed him.
It’s harder to feel this satisfaction—this blessing—in our Gospel text, because we, as readers, know that Jesus is captured in the garden and taken to his death on the cross shortly after. But we also know that Jesus was resurrected on the third day and brought to heaven, defeating death itself and bringing blessings of redemption to the entire world.
Not getting what we want is hard. And sometimes, it involves very high stakes. But not getting what we want isn’t always the end of the line for us. Often, not getting what we want is just a part of our journey. Not getting what we want prompts foundational encounters with the God who made us and who continues to meet us with grace.
