REBEL WITH A CAUSE

How far would you go to receive a blessing for the God of the universe? What even is God’s blessing? Allow for me to weave for you today a story of deception, scandal and redemption with an epic showdown. I am going to be telling you about my favourite character from the bible, Jacob, the rebel with a cause, who pursued blessings like a mad dog chasing down cars. We will be joining Jacob on his quest to trade, work and fight for the blessing at all cost.

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TRADE & BETRAYED

You’ve heard of sibling rivalry before but Jacob and Esau were something else. Before these twins were even born, they jostled and fought each other within the womb until their poor mother cried to God in desperation ‘why is this happening to me?’. Genesis 25:23 | The Lord said to her, ‘Two nations bare in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.’ True to this prophecy as the babes were born, the younger twin clutched the heel of his brother for which he was named Jacob meaning ‘to trip up or overthrow’; a fitting metaphor for his entire life to come.

Esau, the elder brother, was a hunter and his father Isaac's favourite but he despised the blessing of his birthright that Jacob so eagerly desired, at one point literally selling Jacob his birthright for a bowl of kangaroo stew, just kidding, it was wombat stew. Similarly, when Isaac approached the end of his life, he called his favourite son Esau and requests that he hunt some game and prepare him a meal so that he might bless him. Overhearing this, Rebekah, Jacob’s mother, quickly prepares a meal and convinces Jacob to steal the blessing from his blind father by pretending to be Esau.

What is this blessing that had Genesis brothers up in arms? Talk about testosterone gone wrong, you’ve got Cain & Abel, Isaac & Ishmael and now Esau & Jacob but not a clue between them. One thing's for sure, since Romans 2:11 clearly states God does not show favouritism the blessing isn’t some egocentric game of favourites like Isaac seemed to think. People brand Jacob as the Old Testament bad boy but what of Isaac and Esau, the spiritually blind father and son whose God were their stomachs and who were willing to give away their blessing for a meal. What of us here today try who try so desperately to live both Godly and worldly lives? It seems to me that God created Jacob with secret knowledge of the blessing being desirable above all things with the express purpose of frustrate Isaacs attempt to bless according to the flesh instead of the spirit. If we seek God’ blessing, we need to be like Jacob in trading our own image for that of heaven’s one true heir, Jesus Christ.

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BAAAA’D SHEETS & BLACK SHEEP

When Isaac discovers Jacob had stolen Esau’s blessing, he is furious and sends him away to find a wife and to be straightened out by his Uncle Laban and of course to save him from his brother Esau’s murderous rage. Before the month is out, our compulsive Jacob falls madly in love with Laban’s youngest daughter Rachel and offers to work seven years for Laban’s blessing to marry her. Laban agrees. Upon completing the seventh year, Jacob says to Laban, Genesis 29:21 | ‘Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her’ (perhaps a little too much information for a future father in-law, nevertheless, Jacob motives are clear). True to the agreement, Jacob and Rachel get married, however, on the wedding night, Laban sends his elder daughter Leah into Jacob’s room instead of Rachel and the overwhelmingly eager Jacob makes love to her none the wiser. Genesis 29:25 | When the morning after came, there was Leah! (I think this is one of the few times the bible uses an exclamation mark). Can you believe this scandal? Tricked from his Uncle’s blessing, Jacob, the original trickster himself, gets a taste of his own medicine. Jacob hunts down his Uncle Laban who again offers him his youngest daughter Rachel albeit for an additional seven years labour. Jacob reluctantly agrees to this awkward love triangle but though he should have known better than to repeat the sins of his father, he shows favoritism toward the full bodied Rachel rather than weak-eyed Leah. And, just as God frustrated Isaac’s plans by blessing Jacob over his brother, so God now frustrated Jacob’s plans by blessing Leah with six sons whilst Rachel remained barren until the seventh year.

Upon again completing the seventh year, Jacob now seeks Laban’s blessing for his family to return to his homeland. However, Laban had greatly prospered from God’s blessing over Jacob during his extended fourteen years of service and he was reluctant for him to take his leave, but being as he had run out of daughters he asked Jacob to name his price to stay. Jacob, being the unconventional black sheep that we have all come to know and love, requests ownership of all Laban’s existing and future dark-coloured, spotted, speckled and streaked livestock, which within that culture were considered less desirable. Unable to believe his luck, Laban readily agrees, however, following their agreement just as God blessed the blemished wife's fertility, so God’s blessing over Jacob saw only the blemished livestock reproducing and Laban’s wealth inadvertently transferred across to Jacob. Remis to see the blessing of their birthright dwindling, Laban’s sons like Esau begin to grumble and God warns Jacob to return home.

Isn’t it fun to watch God frustrate Man’s plans (but not so fun to have your own plans frustrated as Jacob learnt the hard way)? I think we are now ready to rule out a few more things the blessing isn’t: it isn’t a nice dinner, it isn’t marrying a hottie and it isn’t financial prosperity. What’s left you might ask? Keep listening. We’ll get there. But for now it seems clear Jacob is gradually becoming self-aware and figuring God out in the process. God judges the hearts of man and blesses the humble; the younger Jacob, the weak-eyed Leah, the blemished cattle. 1 Peter 1:17-19 | Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. If we seek God’s blessing, like Jacob, we need to seek out, strengthen and redeem this world’s blemished and defective sheep, of whom we are one, through the precious blood of Jesus that turns runts into champions and slaves of the flesh into masters.

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SHOULDER CHIPS DOWN

Jacob heeds God’s warning, fleeing his Uncle Laban with his family and newly acquired wealth but as he approaches his homeland again for the first time in twenty years there's a rising sense that the mexican standoff of the fated enemy twins is approaching an epic showdown where there can be only one. Jacob prays to God one of the most humble and sincere prayers found in the bible Genesis 32:10 - 11 | ‘I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant...11 Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children’. Receiving news that Esau and four hundred of his men are mustering to meet him, Jacob fights the urge to run, instead sending before his convoy extravagant gifts with the message ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.’ Can you believe this miraculous transfiguration? That babe that grabbed at his brother's heel, that young man that stole his brothers blessing returning as a humble servant to bless. Can you not almost palpably feel the hand of God reaching down from heaven and moulding Jacob into the image of Christ.

That said, some things never change. The very night before Jacob was scheduled to be reunited with Esau for better or worse, he wrestles with a mysterious stranger from dusk till dawn and although he’d started with a chip on his shoulder he left with a chip on his hip but in true Jacob fashion, he refused to let the stranger go until he blessed him. Genesis 32:28, 30 | ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome... 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, 'It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared'.

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Well that’s it. If you want the hear how the story finishes between Jacob and Esau you will have to pick up your own bible but as stands, you’ve witnessed Jacob’s story of deception, scandal and redemption, so tell me what then is the blessing?... God! That’s the twist, God is the blessing. You can be the most wretched creature on the face of the planet but if you’ve got God you’ve got it all. No matter how many blessings Jacob traded, worked or fought for his heart burned for more because true blessing is found in God alone. We don’t need our fathers, spouse, or riches to tell us we are special, we need only to wholeheartedly submit to our creator. Isaiah 64:8 | We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand. So then let’s resolve ourselves to be like Jacob to rebel against the things of this world for God’s cause and the blessing of being moulded and refined into the image of Jesus, of seeking out the black sheep of this world, of wrestling with and refusing to let go of God and in doing so becoming a blessing to others.