Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

When you read and study the Bible, are you looking for advice on how you should live your life? As you search the Scriptures, do you seek insight into making difficult decisions? Many people look to God’s Word for only those reasons. The only thing they hope for from the mouth of God is the law. At least when you’re trying to fulfill the law, and live a Christian life, you’re still in control, even though you try to convince others and yourself that the Lord is. Bookstore shelves are overflowing with twelve-step programs, testimonial stories, and money-management tips that the authors claim are drawn right out of the Old and New Testaments. The only reason Jesus may be mentioned by name is because He could portray a model of effective leadership, or give some helpful etiquette tips. And if you happen to hear of His miracles, or His death and resurrection, those all-important events of faith take a back-seat to the overemphasis on His teachings concerning love and dispute-resolution, or what have you.

Now, when you look in the Bible for examples of moral living, there are a few characters who make you a little uncomfortable to mention in mixed company. Jacob is one of those people on whom you probably had to keep a pretty watchful eye. His name means “ankle-grabber” and it was given to him because that’s what he was doing to his twin brother Esau when they were born. Later in life, Jacob became notorious for his deceptive tactics, and was prodded on by his mother to steal his father’s blessing of inheritance with a simple meal. Later, his father-in-law deceived him and switched out one daughter on Jacob and tricked him into working for the other one. Before all is said and done, Jacob ends up with twelve sons and at least one daughter by four women! So much for Jacob being an example of good morality—he’d be a better case of behavior that you should avoid. And yet you may be surprised to hear that this story of Jacob is one of the best examples God has given of prayer.

And prayer is another well-covered topic, because it often falls into the category of the law. It’s something you should be doing, and if you would do more of it, things would turn out better for your life. You feel compelled to discourage a little child from being selfish in bedtime prayers as he or she is running through a whole list of things they want from God. And yet right afterward you go and do the same thing: if only my job could be more secure, if only my family and friends would like me, I would be happy if we brought in just a little more each month. And prayer is where you often turn for help because you want to get stuff. That might make prayer a popular thing to do for a while, but then the reality of life hits you and you either suppose that you didn’t pray the right way or that God has actually abandoned you, left you high and dry, and you feel totally helpless. Then it is often easy to become disenchanted with prayer, and you eventually drop it in hopes of something else more effective.

So, how is the deceptive, conniving, polygamist Jacob an example of prayer? Rather than looking at what Jacob does, you must instead turn your attention to what Jacob believes. For what he does is more or less up to him and it’s an all too common fact that like you, Jacob’s sinful, selfish nature often is what wins out in everyday life. But what he believes, that is not up to him, it was not anything he could take credit for. That is, Jacob’s faith, just like your faith, is completely a gift of God placed in the heart. And prayer is the sometimes joyful, sometimes agonizing struggle that exercises this God-given faith and puts it to work.

Prayer is a struggle? Absolutely, and not only prayer, but all of your Christian life is a struggle. And not a struggle merely with yourself, you know, saint versus sinner and so on. You are locked in a daily wrestling match with the Lord, just like Jacob was. The only difference is in the sort of wrestling moves you are using in your struggle. Instead of an exchange of physical blows or shifting your center of gravity, trying to force each other flat on their back, rather these are what your moves might be like, listen carefully:

God says: you have sinned. You respond: Yes, but you love sinners and you desire for me to be saved. God says: you deserve punishment. You respond: Yes, but Christ has taken that punishment for me on the cross. God says: you shall surely die. You respond: But in Jesus’ resurrection you, Lord, have guaranteed my resurrection to eternal life!

Do you notice what is going on in this struggle that I’ve just described? Your wrestling opponent is giving you all the moves you need to pin Him down to the mat! He sets you up to win this match that’s called prayer. That’s what’s even more strange than thinking of prayer as a struggle with God, is that He makes sure you beat Him through His promises. You pin your hope to one of His unchangeable promises, and thus you’ve pinned your heavenly Father. Sure you may come out of it a little beat up with life’s persecutions or surrendering some of the sinful world’s passing comforts, but wasn’t it better for Jacob, who was renamed Israel, to enter the Promised Land with a limp than for him with limber joints to run the opposite direction and live only for himself? Jesus said something like that before: it will be better to enter life lame, blind or crippled than with a whole body to suffer in hell. You prevail in your wrestling match of prayer with God the same way: with a few occasional difficulties now, but you’ve pinned God to His promise that He will bless you eternally in Christ Jesus.

That was exactly what I said happened when the Gentile woman asked Jesus for healing and said even the little dogs eat crumbs that fall from the Master’s table. That was her wrestling move! She had faith, God-given faith, that reminded God of His own promise to save all people, that even a crumb from the heavenly table would be enough for eternal salvation. And so Jesus said to her, just as He says to you: your faith has saved you. You see, this is not because you said the right prayer, or that you believed with great fervency and strength, but because you rubbed God’s face in the promise that He’s already made to you ever since you were baptized. He cannot go back on His promise, so He’s pinned. And you know what: nothing could delight Him more! Sure He commands you to pray, and yet it’s not a requirement. He’s simply inviting you to contend in a match in which He’ll guarantee you’ll win. And the prize for the winner? Forgiveness of sins, life and eternal salvation!

And so when you read or study the Bible, when you hear God’s Word being proclaimed, don’t just search for helpful tips for everyday life. Don’t perk up your ears merely for matters of the law. Morality is definitely important, and it must be an integral part of us as well-disciplined Christians. But here’s the big secret: the law never gives you the important wrestling moves you need in prayer. You’ll never fulfill God’s demands that He makes in the Ten Commandments. What you’ll need to listen very closely for are His promises. The Gospel, the good news of salvation by believing in Jesus Christ the crucified: that’s how you’re going to pin your Lord down every time. The Gospel writer Luke reports to you that Jesus is so many times better than the unjust judge for this purpose, remember what it said?: “to the effect that [you] ought always to pray and not lose heart.”

At this altar, you have the true Body and Blood of the Son of God who came down briefly to wrestle with Jacob long ago, but who also came later on in your own human flesh to take away your sin and lead you, the true Israel, to the ultimate Promised Land. No better assurance exists in all the world of God’s promise to your body and to your soul. In these precious gifts that you receive in your ear and in your mouth, He has given you the gift of saving faith to prevail in the struggle of prayer. And whether in this short life you’ll become a good leader, an effective parent, a millionaire, or simply a better help to someone in need, let Him take care of all that.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Green Altar Parament

Readings:
Gen. 32:22–30 Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel
Psalm 121 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in
2 Tim. 3:14—4:5 All scripture is given by inspiration of God … Preach the word!
Luke 18:1–8 parable of the unjust judge