Genesis 32,23-32 2323
Quasimodogeniti 37 Low Sunday
Aaron, high priest, brother of Moses
16. April 2023
1. ℣ As newborn babes:
℟ Desire the sincere work of the Word (1. Peter 2,2).
O Risen Jesus, who greeted Your disciples in Galilee; give us Your peace, so that believing in Your resurrection we look forward to ours when Your reign of heaven with its eternal peace is fully manifested on the last day. Amen. (Matthew 28,7; John 20,26 Versicles)
2. »The same night Jacob arose and took his 2 wives, his 2 female servants and his 11 children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 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. Then He said: „Let Me go, for the day has broken.“ But Jacob said: „I will not let You go unless You bless me.“ And He asked him: „What is your name?“ And he replied: „Jacob.“ 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.“ 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. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [face of God; I have seen God], saying: „For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.“ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel [face of God; I have seen God], limping because of his hip. 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.«
3. Jacob’s life was one of struggle. He struggled with his brother Esau. He struggled with His father. He struggled with his Uncle Laban. And he struggled with God. Jacob’s life was also one of deceit. If Jacob could deceive, trick or steal it, he would do so to obtain the blessing God had promised him. Moses tells us that Jacob tricked his brother into selling the birthright. Jacob later deceived his father Isaac into blessing him. Jacob stole the blessing God had promised him.
4. At 40 years of age, Jacob had to flee the fierce anger of his twin brother Esau who wanted to kill him. Jacob ran so far away that he went to Haran that is the land of his mother Rebekah’s family and her brother, Laban. Jacob stays with his Uncle Laban for 20 years. During that sojourn God showers Jacob with every blessing and makes him a wealthy man: he has 2 wives, 11 children and flocks of goats and lambs that span the horizon by Chapter 32.
5. At 60 years of age Jacob is returning to the land of his grandfather Abraham, his father Isaac and his brother Esau. Jacob had struggled with his brother, and won. Jacob had struggled with his uncle, and won. Now Jacob will finally struggle with God, and win! All night long Jacob and God wrestle; it is almost certainly Jesus whom Jacob wrestled. At daybreak Jesus dislocates Jacob’s hip. It’s over; God has surely won. But Jacob won’t let go!He is exhausted. He is in pain. But Jacob is tenacious and will not stop wrestling with God. What will it take for Jacob to finally submit? Jacob says: „I won’t let You go until You bless me.“ What more does this man want? God has been blessing him his entire life! But Jacob fears Esau. What good are his blessings if he is dead? So he wants another blessing; he wants Divine protection from Esau. Jesus tells Jacob: „Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men.“
6. 1500 years later another Jewish man wrestled with Jesus: Thomas was a disciple, an apostle and a friend of Jesus for 3 miraculous years. He had witnessed Jesus betrayed, arrested, condemned to death, crucified and buried. People at the cross were saying that Jesus had cried out right before He died that God had forsaken Him! Then Thomas heard from the women and the apostles that the tomb is now empty and that they had seen Jesus with their own eyes and verified with their own hands that this was a bodily resurrection with a whole and healthy body.
7. Thomas wrestled mentally and spiritually with what he was being told. He did not believe, could not believe, until he himself declared: »Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe« (John 20,25). Thomas was asking Jesus for a blessing that would confirm His resurrection.
8. Jesus is gracious with His blessings. Ask, and you shall receive, Thomas: »Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe« (John 20,27). Thomas then answered Jesus: »My Lord and my God!« Thomas gives a confession of faith that is simple yet profound; it is a confession that is born from Jesus’ blessing.
9. We have struggles in our life; we wrestle to understand the Bible and God. And Jesus gives us a twofold blessing. First, »Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed« (John 20,29). This is directed to us nearly 2000 years removed from Jesus’ resurrection. „This is what it means to have faith: to believe that you have been received into grace for Christ’s sake. This faith comforts you and brings peace to your conscience. It gives you joy and makes you a child of God“ (AE 26,123). „Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that we could stake our life on it a thousand times“ (AE 1,155).
10. Second, Jesus blesses us with His real presence in the Lord’s Supper. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians: »For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said: This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying: This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He returns« (1. Corinthians 11,23-26).
11. Luther often made the connection between the Lord’s Supper and Christ’s resurrection. The sacrament of the altar shows Christ’s resurrection, and therefore it is called the „Easter Sacrament“ (AE 37,347). The Lord’s Supper is a visible sermon of the resurrection of Christ (AE 22,308). The Lord’s Supper is a testimony and a sign of the resurrection of Christ, by which we are assured that He has conquered death and sin, and that we too will be raised from the dead to live with Him forever (AE 35,143).
12. The Lord’s Supper was instituted to connect us to Christ and to strengthen our faith in Him. Like Thomas we reply: My Lord and my God!!
13. Death, sin, life and grace,
All in His hands is traced;
He can save all,
Who near to Him draw.
Kyrie eleison. (Jesus Christus, unser Heiland elkg 438,3 2021 Martin Luther 1524)
This is most certainly true.
14. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7). Amen.
15. Let us pray. O Lord our God, grant us grace to desire Thee with our whole heart, that so desiring, we may seek and find Thee, and so finding Thee we may love Thee and loving Thee we may hate those sins from which Thou hast redeemed us; for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. (Quasimodogeniti, Vespers Collect 2. The Daily Office. Copyright © 1965 Concordia Publishing House.)
To God alone be the Glory
Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Septuaginta, Vol. I and II 2. Revised Edition © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Evangelisch-Lutherisches Kirchengesangbuch. Copyright © 2021 Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, Hannover.
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