Jacob wrestling with the Night Visitor II: Gen. 32:22=31

As I turn to the text of Gen. 32, I will be concerned with four things about it: (1) the Aloneness of Jacob; (2) the Injury suffered; (3) the Discussion of Names; and (4) the Blessing through Injury. Each one of these has magnificent "Crater Lake-type" psychological depths to it, and I will only hint at some directions you might want to take your thoughts.

I. Walking the Lonesome Valley--Alone

What is arresting about the passage is that Jacob must make elaborate preparations in order to be able to fight his opponent. Verse 22 tells us about it. He had to take his family to the other side of the Jabbok. As commentator Gerhard von Rad tells us, this is no mean feat--the Jabbok winds through a deep and precipitous canyon. Preparations to face our private demons can themselves be daunting; perhaps that is why we seldom engage in the struggle. But then, after the preparations are made, the struggle begins. And the struggle must be alone. You may be the most gregarious person in three counties; you, like Jacob, might have two wives (hope not!) and eleven children. You might be surrounded by assistants, helpers, an entire army of paid supporters and "yes men." But these are rather worthless for you, because the struggle for the soul, the struggle to discover personal identity must be engaged in solitarily. And, it is at night. The nighttime is symbolic of the unclarity, darkness and uncertainty that stalks the process of self-examination. We might literally not have to face our demons in the night-time, but we certainly will walk through valleys of confusion, interior turmoil and despair as we deal with them. And, in addition, the struggle takes all night. What are things that keep people up all night? Well, sex, perhaps. That is a good thing! But term papers do. Despair does. Tears do. Physical pain does. Conflict does. And, when you have wrestled all night with something you are exhausted. That is what it means to wrestle with the "man" who is in your path.

We shudder at the thought of the wrestling. Often we need help or encouragement to keep doing it. We want to quit; we know we are too weak to deal with the fearsome process. But, guess what? We have only covered the first three verses of the passage. Much more is to come.

II. Wrestling and Injury

The relentless struggle goes on. Jacob is not able to evade the man, nor is he able to "fake him out." We have no indication if Jacob tries to use underhanded tactics, the tactics that have accompanied him throughout his life. Maybe he is unable to act any other way by this time. But Jacob is absolutely tenacious. And that is the virtue that is needed in the struggle to discover the self. You need tenacity. You will feel like quitting; indeed, you might quit and declare that this process of self-examination is just too difficult for you. You might deceive yourself into thinking that you are "better" well before you have even begun the process of the struggle. You have to fight all night. Neither side was prevailing. It was going to be a scoreless tie. There is the suggestion in the text that the man needs to leave at daybreak (v. 26). I don't know if this has any psychological meaning. In the context of the story, the author is probably referring to ancient stories where the magic and power of the night visitor will disappear with the daybreak.

But just as the day is breaking, just as the night visitor, the man, the one who makes us wrestle with all our might, is leaving, he decides to strike Jacob (us) on the hip. And, our hip is put out of joint. But the text isn't fully clear. On the one hand it gives the impression that the hip is put out of joint during the night; on the other hand it suggests that the night creature injured Jacob as day was breaking, perhaps as a way to escape from his clutches.

But the psychological point ought not to be missed. During the fight to understand the self, we feel ourselves further injured. This is important to note because it adds to the fears that we already fear because we are opening the can of worms of earlier hurts. That is, we engage in the process of wrestling with our demons and, rather than getting better, we get worse. Rather than solving anything, we become more injured. Rather than rising up with wings like eagles, we become weaker. That is the "gift" of the "man" who wrestles all night with us. While we are wrestling, he hurts us. And, it may be that he has delivered a sort of "low blow." That is, it might not have been "fair" for him to inflict the injury on us. It could have been a desperate ploy to get out of our grip, a sort of poke in the eye that makes us relax our grip in order to deal with the sudden pain of the injury. Dammit! The night visitor, the demon, isn't even playing fair!! Here we are. Vulnerable. Already injured. Trying to wrestle with those things that have long stalked us. And the one with whom we wrestle then plays more games with us, and hurts us further. And, we are alone, still. We can't call on armies of angels to help us. We simply must be injured further.

III. The Tide Begins to Turn--Talking About Names

But the tide begins to turn when two things happen. One is that Jacob requires the night wrestler to bless him; and the other is that Jacob and the night wrestler talk about names. In fact, Jacob says that he will not let go until the man blesses him. Here is the real turning point in the narrative because Jacob knows now that he simply has to have a blessing. It isn't good enough to fight to a draw; it isn't enough to have the man fade away with the sunlight and hope for a future encounter. Jacob needs a blessing.

But the blessing doesn't come without the exchange of names. The breakthrough is when the man tells Jacob that he will have a new name. It will no longer be Jacob (he supplants), but Israel (he strives with God). The new name will, we hope, be illustrative of a change in personality. No longer will he be the deceptive person, the one who feels he has to supplant because he is second in the birth order and wants the "perks" of the firstborn. Now he is able to face himself because he has been touched by the "man," touched by God.

Jacob is convinced that he has seen the very face of God in this encounter. "For I have seen God face to face" (v. 30). And that, friends, is the result of the encounter with the self, with the fight against the self. Those who stick with it, who go through the depths of the night hours, who face the darkness, who endure the further injury during the night, will eventually see God. Even though the Scripture says in other passages that no one can see God and live, we have the impression that the experience of Jacob was so vivid here that he not only lives, but he learns to live and flourish in new ways. So it is with us. We face our demons and the result of this most fearsome fight in our life is that we see God--or at least the 'traces' of God. It really can't get much more overwhelming than this.

IV. Living with the Injury

But the story ends on a most realistic, sobering, yet exhilarating note. As the sun rose on him, he walked along, "limping because of his hip." That is, the results of the nighttime encounter stay with us. The scars of the night meeting, the additional lines in the face, the greying in the hair becomes a permanent part of our visage and person. We may be "healed" in some ways through the encounter, but we bear on our body the marks of it. Yet, that is ok. Indeed, that is wonderful. We become "marked" people, marked by the grace of God, with stories to tell and visions to communicate.

Do all in your power to face the night "man" in your life. Encouage others to do it. It is the hardest, but one of the most rewarding, things you may ever do in your life. But so many obstacles face us. Will you undertake it yourself? Encourage others to do so? A whole new and wonderful world waits on the other side of the night.

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