22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh. (Gen. 32:22-32 ESV)
Earlier, Jacob prays to God for deliverance from his brother Esau whom he is about to meet. Before he meets Esau, however, he meets God. God will deliver Jacob from Esau, just as Jacob asked. More, God will deliver Jacob from an entire lifetime of a less than ideal identity and legacy–God renames him Israel, forever breaking his status from things tied to a shadowy past and forging his status to the person of God himself.
But this blessing and deliverance come at a cost–a limp. Israel is permanently injured, crippled, incapacitated. In this, Walter Brueggemann writes, the nation of Israel was to learn the lesson of power in weakness, which would be most fully displayed in the cross of Jesus.
We, the people of God, are destined to limp. We experience blessing in the context of injury, power in the context of weakness.
Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Are you frustrated with some frailty or failing or failure in your life? Are you infuriated about some injury or some imperfection in your life? In this you may find the very power of God. In this you may find the very blessing of God.
