"God-Struggles"
#92-09Presented on The Lutheran Hour on October 27, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: Genesis 32:28
"The struggle is real" is something that people say. I took an informal poll about this phrase recently. I asked folks, "When do you hear this phrase, 'the struggle is real?' Where does it fit? What's the context?" One person said, "When it's been too long since my last workout. I'm trying to get back in shape," and we said, "Amen to that. The struggle is real." Another person said that the phrase fits when she's taking care of her young, rambunctious grandsons. We were like, "Amen, sister. The struggle is real there." A man who works in management at an engineering design firm said, "Anytime you're working with people is a struggle. Whether it's co-workers or customers or constituents, because of all the complicated things that human beings do, communicating with other people is the hardest."
And then thinking about all these contexts that you hear this phrase, "the struggle is real," made us think about why people say it. Sometimes it's for gathering a community of strugglers. When we say the struggle is real, it brings us all together. Other times it's a way of assuring someone that struggle is normal, that what you're going through is normal, that it's to be expected. You don't even have to say the whole phrase. You can just say, "It's getting real in here," or "It's about to get real." The struggle is real because real is the opposite of imaginary. But sometimes it gets so real that we wonder if we are imagining things. Will there ever be an end to the struggle? And if so, where does all this struggle lead, where does it go?
On this program we have been listening to the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. We listen to the Bible because we are, as the name states, Lutherans, The Lutheran Hour. An hour, in this case as you've probably figured out, is figurative. It's never been a literal hour, not in 92 years. It's always been figurative. It's like when Jesus says to His mother, "Woman, My hour has not yet come." That's what I tell people when they point out the fact that our program's not actually an hour. I just quote John 2:4, "My hour has not yet come."
We aren't literally an hour, but we are literally Lutheran, and sure, we'll invite you to be an honorary Lutheran today, no matter who you are because we are heirs of this 16th-century Reformation, a famous Jesus movement led by a German Catholic pastor named Martin Luther. One of the slogans of that reformation in church history, along with sola fide—"faith alone"—and sola gratia—"grace alone"—was the phrase ad fontes, which means "to the sources." It was a phrase used more broadly in the 16th century among Renaissance humanists. https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/battle-for-the-past
"To the sources" in that broader context meant that you got to go learn old languages—Latin and Greek and Hebrew—so that you can read the old books: Homer and Virgil, Moses and Cicero.
Now for Catholic Christians at the time, ad fontes was a call back to the Bible, to listen to the Bible as it's been given to us, not chopped up in sound bites laden with commentary from professional interpreters. No, the Bible as it was given primarily as historical, dramatic narrative, such as found in the 50 chapters of Genesis. And right in the middle of it, there is the life and struggle of Jacob, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.
So we have been going ad fontes, back to the sources, to the fountain and source of our faith, to the Bible, to the grand biblical narrative that leads us to Jesus—that snake-crushing King promised in Genesis, the Son of God, the personal Word of God, the Source of the source of our faith. Faith alone, by God's grace alone, that's the key to a right relationship with God. That's the core teaching of this 16th-century Reformation which many folks will commemorate this coming week. Faith alone by grace alone is the key, but where does that key come from? What's the source of that relationship? What's the delivery system and the support system? Sola scriptura is the other phrase—"scripture alone"—which is ever and always leading us to Christ alone, the Source of the source. God gives faith through means, through hearing the narrative of Scripture and the promises and commands of God contained therein.
So we're listening to Genesis because we expect God to struggle within us and against us and for us when we meet Him there, when we encounter Him in His Word. Genesis is an account of a great struggle, but it doesn't begin in struggle. Other ancient accounts of the creation of the world begin in struggle with a war between the gods, the god of order defeating the god of chaos, ripping chaos to pieces, using her corpse to create this present world and the human beings within it, all sown in the seeds of chaos and violence and survival of the fittest.
Struggle is in the very nature of things according to these ancient polytheistic religions, and also according to many modern macro-evolutionary cosmogonies. But Genesis tells a different story. Struggle is not in the nature of things, but rather harmony and goodness and holiness and rest. Creativity and community with God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—not out of a war of the gods but from the fellowship of God, His Word and His Spirit was the world created. That's what Genesis says.
Struggle came later. Struggle is a byproduct of our rebellion. Struggle is a side effect of the faith that we put in created things rather than the Creator. Genesis is the account of God's epic struggle to win us back, to win us over to confidence and trust in Him, to win us a place in His fellowship, in His family. And at the center of God's struggle in Genesis is a man named Jacob, grandson of Abraham. And the struggle is real in Jacob's life. Even from the womb of his mother, Rebecca, he's struggling, he's wrestling with his twin brother, Esau. Esau won apparently because he came out first, but Jacob, the trickster, had him by the heel. And later their sibling rivalry gets so real that Jacob has to leave home for 20 years because his brother Esau hates him and wants to murder him.
Genesis 32, the story picks up there. It's been 20 years since Jacob ran away from home. And on the way he had that famous dream of the ladder, the stairway coming down from heaven, and the God of Abraham promised Jacob, "I will bless you and your offspring will multiply and spread out, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. And I'm with you and will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you, but I'll do what I promised you."
So 20 years later, Jacob is finally returning home with his two wives. Well, really four wives, 11 sons, and a daughter named Dinah. God has been faithful. But Jacob is tired, tired of the struggle, hoping finally to find some peace with his brother, Esau.
Genesis 32 says that Jacob, he went on his way back home and as he was going, the angels of God, the messengers of God, met him. Maybe it was at that place where he had seen the stairway and Jacob said, "This is the camp of God." And he called the name of that place Mahanaim, which means "two camps." Then Jacob sent his messengers ahead of him to the face of Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir. Jacob instructed them saying, "This is what you are to say to my master, Esau. 'Your servant Jacob says, "I have been staying with Laban and have remained there until now, and I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, manservants and maidservants, and I'm sending this message to my Lord so that I may find favor in your eyes."'"
Then the messengers returned to Jacob, and they said, "We went to your brother Esau, and now he's coming to meet you and 400 men are with him." Jacob was afraid, greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people who were with him and the flocks and herds and the camels as well into two camps.
And he said, "If Esau comes and attacks one camp, the other camp that is left may escape." And then Jacob prayed. He said, "O God of my father, Abraham, God of my father, Isaac, O Lord, You said to me, 'Return to your homeland and I will do good to your offspring that is with you.' I am not worthy of all the steadfast love and faithfulness You have shown Your servant. 20 years ago when I crossed this river Jordan, all I had was my staff. And now I have become two camps. Save me, please, from the hand of my brother Esau because I'm afraid of him that he will come and attack me and also the mothers with their children. But You have said, 'I will certainly do good to you and I will make your seed like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'"
Now, Jacob stayed there that night, and he took from what he had to prepare a gift for his brother Esau: 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 female sheep and 20 male sheep, 30 female camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys. Then he handed these over to his servants, each herd on its own. And he said to his servants, "Go ahead of me and keep some space between the droves." And he instructed the first servant, the one in the lead, he said, "When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, 'To whom do you belong and where are you going, and who owns all these animals, before you?' you say to him, 'They are your servant Jacob's. They are a gift for my master, Esau, and Jacob also is coming behind us.'"
Then he instructed the second and the third and all the servants after them (to) say the same thing to Esau and tell him, "Look, your servant Jacob is coming behind us," because Jacob said, "Maybe I will soften his face with this gift I am sending him. And so later when I see him, his face will shine on me."
And so he sent the gift ahead of him, and that night he camped there. Then Jacob got up in the night and he sent his wives and his children over the ford of the Jabbok of the Jordan River. He sent everything he had across the stream, and Jacob was left by himself, alone. And a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And when the man saw that he could not prevail over Jacob, he struck the hollow of his hip inside his thigh. He dislocated Jacob's hip as he wrestled with him. And the man said, "Let me go, because it's almost daybreak!" And I don't know, how do you picture it? Does Jacob have this guy in a headlock or does the man have some hold on him, a half Nelson, a full Nelson, an arm bar? I don't know.
But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." And the man said, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." And the man said, "Your name is no longer Jacob, but Yisrael, "God struggles." Because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed." And Jacob asked him, "Tell me, please, what is your name?" And he said, "Why do you have to ask my name?" And he blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of that place, Peniel, "face of God." He was saying, "Because I saw God face to face, yet my life was spared."
And the sun rose over him as he passed Peniel, and Jacob was limping because of his hip. Now Jacob lifted up his eyes and look, he saw Esau, his brother, coming toward him and 400 men were with him. Jacob lined up his children with their mothers and the maidservants and their children in front, then Leah and her children, and then Rachel and Joseph after them. And Jacob went ahead of them, bowing to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to him, embraced him, fell on his neck, and kissed him. And they wept. And Esau lifted up his eyes and he saw the women with the children, and he said, "Who are these with you?" Jacob said, "They are the children God has graciously given your servant." And the children and the women drew near, and they bowed down and Esau said, "What did you mean by all these droves of animals that I met on the way?"
And he said, "To find favor in your eyes, my lord." And he (Esau) said, "I already have plenty, my brother. You keep what is yours." Jacob said, "No, no, please, if I found favor in your eyes, take this gift from my hand because to see your face is, it's like seeing the face of God now that you have graciously accepted me. Take it, please, because God has graciously given me all that I need." Because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted. And Esau said to Jacob, "Come now, let's be going, and I'll go with you."
Whenever you meet someone new, whoever they are, it's a pretty sure bet that they are engaged in some struggle, some battle, internal, external. They're going through it right now or they've just come through one or they're about to enter into one. And just knowing that, maybe it helps make us all a bit more patient and gracious with each other because the struggle is real. But it's not the most real thing about us and our situation in the world, because, before there was struggle, and after the struggle has concluded, God and His love will remain. Because God in His love has entered our struggle.
God-Become-Man met you there by the river of your struggle to fight for you and with you. The God-Man was willing to lose to us, to suffer at our hands, to die for us, to save us. Jesus, God's Son, came. He became one of us. He strove for us and with us, and He lost to us. He died on the cross for us to show us that His love is bigger than any struggle. And He rose from the dead and will return one day to raise us from death, to make all things new, to be the Lord of all. And so, in Him, by faith in Him, by His grace, stop struggling, stop striving and know that He is God.
I was talking with a friend, a pastor I know named Michael. Michael is 71 years old, and he's just retired after serving as a teacher and a missionary and a pastor for almost 50 years. And what is he doing in his retirement besides playing lots of pickleball? He's preparing for a mission trip to Nepal. Over the last five years or so, Pastor Michael's church has been ministering to a group of refugees from Nepal. And now half of the congregation, right here in St. Louis, Missouri, consists of Nepalese people, and they've trained and ordained two Nepali men to be pastors for the people, to carry on the work of Pastor Michael. And now they're sending their retired pastor to Nepal for a month to teach and help train more pastors and to stay in one of the refugee camps.
"What are you going to be doing at the refugee camp?" I asked him. "I'm not really clear on that part just yet," he told me, "Other than listening and observing." He does plan to visit an orphanage while he is there and to visit several Christian congregations and households and to hand out copies of a new Nepalese translation of a 500-year-old little book of biblical teachings called The Small Catechism by Martin Luther. But mainly Michael's going there to be with them in their struggle, to enter it with them. So he's been training, wrestling with how to communicate in Nepali, struggling to modify his diet to lose some weight to help keep his gout from flaring up while he's there.
I was talking to Pastor Michael's son about his dad's trip. His son asked me, "You ever seen that movie Secondhand Lions? You know how at the end, that guy, he's in the cornfield, and he's hunting the lion, and he has a heart attack in the field, dies with the gun in his hand and a smile on his face? That's my dad," he said. See, Michael is a servant of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And you too, Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, whatever you are, followers of Jesus, we may not use our retirement years to go stay in a refugee camp, but we each in our own way are called and inspired to enter the struggle of the people around us, to be with them in it. Because in Jesus, God has entered our struggle. He became one of us, to struggle with us and for us and against us, and He was willing to lose to us to prove that His love is bigger than winning. Because His grace and His faithfulness will outlast our struggle, every struggle. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Reflections for October 27, 2024
Title: God-Struggles
No reflection segment this week
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"From God Can Nothing Move Me" arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
"Salvation Now to Us Has Come" setting by Johann Hermann Schein. From Heirs of the Reformation: Treasures of the Singing Church (© 2008 Concordia Publishing House)
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Erhalt Uns Herr bei deinem Wort" by J.S. Bach. From Bunt Gemixt by the Weigersdorfer Blechbläserquartett. Used by permission.
