Finding the words to say what I want to say is not easy. I am afraid that the moment I make my point some will quickly dismiss it as naive, as so much religious hokum to be given lip-service on Sunday morning but forgotten in the real world for the rest of the week. Yet say it I must. How do we get in touch with God? I dare to say to you that our answer to that question can be the same as Jacob’s. In that wrestling match by the river, Jacob got hold of, was held by, a reality he too long had ignored. He was brought up short and made to face who he was and what he was. He had to take ‘God seriously as the One who was in touch with his life; so much in touch that he could feel it to the very marrow of his bones. Here is no placid little old lady, lavender and lace, meek and mild faith – this is a God of power who will not be denied.

It is no different today. No matter how we may try to ignore it, God demands God’s moment with each of us. Actually, it is a daily reckoning, but many of us avoid it until a moment of crisis. Then we can no longer escape. God is real and we are forced to come to terms with him.

How does this happen? The first thing that strikes us about Jacob’s meeting with God was his being alone. There was no human help at his side. If we meet God, we meet God alone. There can be no proxy faith.

In her delightful book, “Life among the Savages,” Shirley Jackson tells of some of the trials and tribulations of raising her family. One morning as she lay in bed, she listened happily to small voices rising in song. She thought how pleasant it was to hear a brother and two sisters playing affectionately together. Then suddenly she really “heard” what they were singing. “Baby ate a spider, Baby ate a spider.” In one leap she was out of bed and down the hall.

Three innocent faces turned to her as she burst in the door. “What did you eat?” she demanded of the baby. Laurie shouted triumphantly. “A spider. Sally ate a spider.” But noticing the look on her mother’s face she added, “But Jimmie gave it to her.” And Jimmie answered, “But Laurie found it.” To which Laurie added hastily, “But Sally ate it herself.”

Regardless who found the spider and who gave it to Sally, no one could eat it for her. So with all of life. No one can live our lives for us. No one can meet God for us. Martin Luther put it so well, “Just as no one can take a bath for us, so no one can believe for us.” God must be a firsthand experience for you and me, or we won’t experience God at all. If we want to get in touch with God, we must begin by getting in touch with ourselves, become more aware of ourselves, the person we really are – not as we might like to pretend to ourselves and others. Jacob’s story is a dramatic description of how this can happen.

Jacob had not planned on that wrestling match he fought by the ford called Jabbok. He was not expecting a fight at midnight, but a fight at noon the next day. Jacob thought the night was his friend – it was the morning that he feared. For the next day Jacob had to face all that he had been running away from for so many years. Years before our story begins, Jacob had tricked his blind old father Isaac into giving him the paternal blessing. Then he had to quickly leave home in order to avoid the fury of his older brother Esau to whom the blessing and the inheritance that went with it should have gone. In the years that followed, Jacob had traded deceit for deceit with his wily Uncle Laban. In the process he had acquired not only two of Laban’s daughters as wives but also the best of Laban’s herds and flocks as well so that Jacob became enormously rich. Laban was just getting ready to teach this trickster a lesson when Jacob gathered up his family, servants and possessions and set out for home. Now he was going back after all those years and he was afraid. How would Esau feel about him? Would he still be angry? When Jacob sent messengers on ahead to tell Esau he was coming, the messengers came back with word that Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred armed men. Jacob was sure he knew what that meant and he cried out in his fear to God, “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother…Esau…for I fear him.”

But even at this moment of crisis, Jacob’s tricks didn’t desert him. As he reached the river that marked the border of Esau’s land, he began sending ahead wave after wave of flocks and herds as gifts to soften up Esau. Then, perhaps, feeling that greed might not be enough to calm his brother’s anger, Jacob also sent ahead his two wives and eleven sons to meet Esau. Perhaps, pity would succeed where greet might fail. Then Jacob was left alone – with himself  - with all the memories and broken dreams of his life – and at this point, says our story, a stranger came out of the night, seized Jacob and wrestled with him all night long. Who was it? I don’t know. The answer is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. Whoever it was, Jacob believed that he was in touch with the reality of God and he wrestled not only to avoid pain, punishment, and judgment, but also to receive a blessing. Finally, as the dawn edged along the horizon the stranger cried out, “Let me go!” “Not until you bless me!” answered Jacob, clinging still in spite of the blow that left him crippled for the rest of his life. “Then I will bless you,” said the stranger, “But I cannot bless you as Jacob, the name which means ‘the deceiver.’ I will bless you as Israel, the man who has struggled with God and man and survived.” Thus was Jacob blessed and the sun rose upon him as he limped down the morning road to meet his brother. Jacob called the name of that place, Peniel, which means “I have seen God face to face and still my life is preserved.” Jacob learned that to meet God he had to face God alone. But he learned something else, also.

Meeting God means the realization and acceptance of the fact that it will be a struggle. Jacob wrestled with his unknown opponent all through the night. He knew himself to be in touch with a power he couldn’t release. To find the meaning and purpose for his life, he had to battle for it. To get in touch with God, he had to hold on and struggle for dear life. And I believe that is true for most of us.

Yes, I know, for some people a relationship with the living God has not been such a struggle, but for the rest of us it is. Whether we like it or not, God can be a problem, an opponent, a threat, one who stands over against us and all easy answers. The temptation is to run away from God – to hide in a childish faith or no faith at all. But that only intensifies the problem. Like Francis Thompson we find that God is the hound of heaven – we can’t escape from God. How could we – because God is the source and meaning of our lives? And God comes to us in the midst of struggle. Life is struggle. It is only in effort and ordeal that we are most creative. Anything worthwhile in life – marriage – vocation – religious faith – grows out of struggle and effort. To meet God, we must be willing to stand and fight. “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

But if meeting God means a struggle, then we must also go on to accept that it will be a struggle that cripple us. I think it is at this third point that so many religious people are most naïve. We assume that if we love and serve God, God will protect us somehow. Not so. We must be willing to pay a price to win the blessing. There is no crown without the cross. In more contemporary terms: no pain, no gain. We must choose, and in our choosing end some hopes and possibilities.

Agnes DeMille described her meeting with the incomparable Anna Pavlova, the greatest dancer of her time. Her hands were claw-like. The insteps of her feet jutted up under the straps of her buttoned slippers like bird claws. There seemed to be no flesh on the foot – it was all bone and muscle tendon. “I knew enough,” said Miss DeMille, “to understand the cost of the beauty she achieved in her art and to be terrified at the price.”

To meet God – to know God’s reality in our lives – is never without cost.

Yet, be sure to see this final truth from our story: the blessing, the reality, the meaning, is there waiting for us if we will only struggle and not give up. God does seek a moment with each of us. There can be no stand-in or proxy. Each of us must face God alone. Meeting God will be a struggle, a struggle which will change us forever. Some value, some hope, some dream may have to be sacrificed.

Yet never forget this – in the very moment of his crippling, at the very moment Jacob might have been most discouraged and given up, a new day dawned. He received the blessing. A new name, a new meaning, a new purpose for his life dawned at Peniel.

Friends, God is trying to reach us in so many ways, trying to get hold of our lives. We are not alone in this universe. God is in the midst of your life and mine – at the most unlikely points. God waits in the midst of every one of our life’s experiences. The Christian is the one who affirms that while all things may not be good, yet all things work together for good for those who hang on, who cry out with Jacob, “I will not let go unless you bless me.” Can you feel that touch on your life now? Then hold on and seek the blessing.