Wrestling with Angels
Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. – Genesis 32:24 (NRSV)
I spent most of my holiday with a five-year-old, one of those short people who knows just about everything.
We watched In the Woods, a musical by Stephen Sondheim. She knew all the songs by heart. At one point in the middle of the movie, I asked her how this was going to end. “Bubbe, you can’t know the end till the end. Don’t you know anything about fiction?” I countered, “I am an English major. I know a lot about fiction. I even know the difference between fiction and fact.” She continued, “Don’t tell me you don’t believe me in angels? Or witches? Or spells?”
If only she knew how well-trained I was to not believe in the extra-terrestrial and to over-depend on the terrestrial.
Now it’s Epiphany, epiphanos, the season of divine visions, the time when what we experienced under the star is revealed anew in the dawning light.
What about Jacob wrestling with a “man” who most artists (see Rembrandt) picture as an angel? Was it God? At the end of wrestling, Jacob got a new name. He was reparented.
The five-year-old is right. You can’t know the end till the end.
How are we going to get through January of 2025? By wrestling with our better angels and not knowing the end until the end. By understanding the Epiphanos, the way light gradually dawns. Even Jacob saw it at daybreak. Morning has broken anyone?
Prayer
Please visit us with a spell-breaking spell, Angel God, and renew in us a right spirit. Cast us not away from your presence and grant us your peace. Wrestle us to the ground if you must get our attention. Amen.
About the AuthorDonna Schaper is a rewired transitional pastor in the UCC and the author most recently of Remove the Pews—first from your theology, then from your building.