Whenever I prepare a message for the Sunday service that includes Communion or serving at the “Lord’s Table,” the intention is always to make the “Eucharist” (a more liturgical name for the “Lord’s Supper”) the centerpiece of the entire service even if we partake of the sacred symbols at the end of the morning. This means that the sermon itself is about an aspect of Christ’s atonement and its impact on you and me in the nitty gritty of “life in the raw” or where we are in our lives right now. Today is no exception. Our text is Genesis 33:10 which is at the heart of what God accomplished in the lives of Jacob and Esau. (Please read this scripture before you go on reading here) This verse is embedded in the larger account of Jacob’s preparations to meet face to face with his estranged brother Esau who had swore fourteen years earlier to kill Jacob (see Gen. 27:41) should he meet up with him again after Jacob’s last treacherous act where he had a feeble and blind Father Isaac bless him rather than his brother Esau.
Since the last time Jacob had seen his brother, he had spent 14 years working in Paddam Aram (which was north of Canaan from whence he came) under an older relative of his. His uncle Laban, was slicker and more clever than Jacob on his best day or shall I say his worst day. That story reads like a modern daytime TV soap opera. If you wish to read about it, start at Gen. 29. But through it all God was with Jacob and prospered him even as He was using Uncle Laban to be a “pruning fork” in Jacob’s life. But, the day came when “school was out” and Jacob was ready to leave “Laban’s School of Hard Knocks,” and move on which meant returning to Palestine. But this meant an inevitable encounter with brother Esau. And Jacob dreaded that. Esau’s stern face was far from being “gentle on his mind.”
Although Jacob had grown considerably in his spiritual walk he still was not quite ready for “prime time.” The Lord needed to work on him more in anticipation of meeting the “bogeyman,” Esau. The Lord used what proved to be Jacob’s imaginary fears of Esau, to “work over” Jacob some more. In terms of “Salvation History” (“Heilsgeschichte,” in German, which means those redeeming events that shaped the history of salvation culminating in the work of Jesus Christ), Jacob’s name was changed to “Israel” after God’s special angel engaged him in an all night wrestling match, “no holds” barred,” which ended up with Jacob crying “uncle” after the Angel messed with a tendon in Jacob’s hip. Through this, Jacob learned that the most formidable person in his life was the Lord and not anyone else. But as Jacob continued to stubbornly hold on to the Angel of the Lord, he asked for a blessing and for openers he got a name change which in the language of Genesis meant “a born again experience.” Then scripture says (Gen. 32:29) Jacob received a “blessing” which seems to have been an afterthought to his name change and not identical to the name change. He also mused that he had seen the face of God and lived. I meditated on all this quite a bit until I read 33:10 where Jacob, (after much prayer and elaborate defensive preparations finally meets up with a very changed Esau who was far removed from carrying out his prior murderous threats, but was very forgiving of his penitent brother) said to Esau: “For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably..”
Do you see what I see? In having seen “the face of God” at the end of the wrestling match, he could later come to his profound realization that once “we see God and live” there is nothing that can come against us because God is greater than our worst fear, real or imagined. And in keeping with the wonders of the atonement, God is there ready to change us and our worst enemy because Jesus died not just for the “beautiful people” but also for you and me. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like ME...” So next time you’re in a fix, don’t be surprised if you see the face of God. Matthew 5:8.
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