[Text: Gen. 35] - “Carried by the Word”

Failure. Distress. Sorrow. Listen to this time in Jacob’s life and learn what carried him through it all.

[Read and Pray – Father, You graciously gave this word thousands of years ago, and You have given it to us today. By the work of your Spirit, Father, won for us by the blood of Christ, open our ears and hearts to hear your message and believe your promises are true for us in Christ.]

Sometimes you find the familiar when you least expect it. During my time in Africa, I once saw a thief caught by a mob intent on their own brand of justice. As I watched them drag the thief across the rocky ground by the waist of his pants – the thief looking like a blanket being dragged behind a toddler – I saw something I’d seen before.

In that thief I saw the misery of sin. In that thief I saw helplessness against guilt as no cry came from his lips. But amid the bows and arrows carried by the crowd, I was struck by the familiarity of the surreal scene because in that thief I was shocked to see...me. In this man, with which on the surface I had so little in common, I recognized myself as if I was looking in a mirror. I looked at him and saw so clearly how much we had in common: both guilty; both helpless sinners; both desperately in need of mercy from God and men. On the outskirts of a shanty-town in Africa, in the middle of mob-delivered justice, with a poor thief who could do nothing to change his fate, I found the familiar.

What we see in Jacob’s life here is something that might be a little more familiar than it appears at first glance. Keep looking at this story and what begins to come into focus, hazy at first and then becoming clearer, is a view into normal life for a believer. Don’t get me wrong. There is a uniqueness to all of this because Jacob lived at a certain time in the Story of Redemption. So, I don’t mean that a terror from God surrounds us as we go into the grocery store. What I mean is that there are things here in Jacob’s story with which the people of God throughout time can intimately relate.

We see from the previous chapter Jacob’s failure and guilt before Yahweh. He’d failed as a father and as a leader and he can’t un-do his guilt. I can relate to that. But here we also see how deeply the actions of others can wound us as we witness Jacob’s silent distress at his son’s sin. And we see Jacob’s grief as he loses three people who were as dear to him as humanly possible. Pain after pain heaped up in his life. Some were his fault and some were others’, but those three things – failure, distress, grief – are so familiar to us. Had he been left alone, I can imagine that Jacob would have felt during this season like the Curse was winning, like nothing ever changes, like sin and death always had and always would win in the end.

Isn’t that familiar? Isn’t that what we feel sometimes today, like if we were left alone then sin would always win? Obviously, our specific circumstances look a little different than Jacob’s. But at the core, we see our lives in this mirror.

There are some seasons in life when it feels like the Curse is winning, when it feels like everything – my sin, the sins of those around me, and the pain of living in a fallen world – when it feels like everything has left me – like that thief – limp and silent and helpless as it carries me along. But the testimony of this Word is that for the people of God it is not the Curse that drags us by the pant-waist. We are carried in the arms of Yahweh and He draws us to Himself and holds us. Calvin said of this passage that it proves, “God never deserts his Church which he has once embraced, but will [obtain] its salvation.”

So, we watch with wonder that Jacob is able to keep going through failure, through distress over his own family, even through sorrow upon sorrow as he loses a friend, a wife and a father. But what becomes clear is that Jacob is able to keep going because he is supported, carried even, by the Word of God.

The Word of God comes to Jacob in the very first verse, coming on the heels of Jacob’s deep failures in the previous chapters. Chapter 34 is one of the darkest passages we’ve seen so far in the Scriptures and no one in it escapes guiltless, least of all Jacob! But when he least deserved it, Yahweh comes with words of comfort as He again calls Jacob to worship Him. God says to him, “Arise…” to lift Jacob up out of his deep failure, to let him know that though his sin had laid him low, Yahweh is a God of mercy who comes to His sinful people with His grace even when they do not look for it. And God says, “…go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” God reaches back more than twenty years to call Jacob’s mind to remember the promises made to him and promises he made in return to worship Yahweh in that place.

Although Jacob’s failures were many and grievous to God and men, the Word of God coming to him tells Jacob that the grace of God does not fail. Because of the Covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and, yes, even Jacob, God welcomed Jacob to turn away from the sin and failure of the past and return to Yahweh in worship.

And Jacob understands that this grace isn’t just for him. It’s for his family, too. The Word of God telling of mercy and calling him back to worship enlivens what was dead in Jacob and we see him taking up again the leadership of his family, of the people of God, which he’d laid aside so easily in the last chapter. He calls “his household and all who were with him” to turn away from their running from God along with Jacob and to prepare to worship their God.

The things he asks them to do are all external actions. The putting away of the foreign gods, the symbolic purification (which would have been a washing with water very similar to baptism today), and the change of garments were all external symbols of what needed to be internal realities of repentant hearts. But Jacob would know that God can never be fooled or compelled to forgive simply because we go through the motions. So, listen to how Jacob motivates his family – and motivates himself – to help their hearts match their outsides.

Jacob says in v. 3, “Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” Just as God called Jacob to look to the past and to God’s faithfulness to His promises to lead Jacob to worship, so Jacob looks to the past to motivate his family to repent and embrace Yahweh for themselves. Certainly, his family knew the stories of how Yahweh had answered Jacob in his distress over Esau’s murderous intentions, how Yahweh had answered Jacob in his distress during his years under Laban’s oppressive control, how Yahweh had delivered Jacob time and time again even from himself. All through his life, the promise of God to be with Jacob – always blessing, always protecting, always faithful even when Jacob wasn’t – the promise of God to be with Jacob had been faithfully kept by Yahweh. That means that even in his worst moment, when Jacob was in Shechem instead of Bethel, Yahweh was with him. No matter where he went, in exile to Paddan-Aram or in sin to Shechem, Yahweh still had not abandoned him. And as they hear these words from their father, the family of Jacob is called to worship the same God of grace.

We don’t know how sincere the repentance of his children was – with that kind of thing we never can be sure. But in their response to Jacob’s words, they do give up the foreign gods and the external symbols of a relationship with those gods and let Jacob hide them. There’s no record that they go back to find them.

Now there was a real element of danger in God’s calling Jacob to Bethel for worship. Jacob was going to have to break camp and open himself and his family to attack – they would be very vulnerable while on the move. That’s important as you remember the context of the call to worship and how it comes on the heels of the murderous rampage of revenge his son’s from which his sons had just returned. At the end of chapter 34, we hear Jacob’s concern that the neighboring peoples would attack Jacob and his family to avenge the atrocity at Shechem.

But Jacob goes out toward Bethel anyway. He must have reasoned, “If God has been with me in the past and is now calling me back to worship, then won’t God be with me and protect me on the way?” In v. 5 we see that Jacob’s faith in Yahweh is not misplaced. A paralyzing terror from God fell on the enemies of the people of God and Yahweh stops their plans for revenge.

And so, Jacob and all those with him arrived at Bethel. Called by the Word of God and led by the mercy of God, they came and offered their worship to the “God of Bethel,” the God who had answered Jacob in every distress and who had been faithfully with him wherever he went – even when he had failed.

Then we come to a moment of deep grief as Deborah, Jacob’s mother’s nurse, passes away. The pain of loss must have been so severe as this woman who had been a part of their family for generations – like a grandmother to the whole clan – was laid to rest. They called the place “oak of weeping.” We’ll come back to this next word from the LORD in vv. 9-13 in a moment, but look at what comes after it. As soon as they begin journeying onward, distress and sorrow begin to coming in waves.

Rachel goes into labor with the son she prayed for back in chapter 30 saying, “May the LORD add to me another son!” The LORD has given her another son and you hear the midwife trying to comfort her with that blessing. But listen to the grief in Rachel as she knows her life is passing away. She names her son, the twelfth son of Israel, Ben-oni – “son of my sorrow.” But Jacob doesn’t let it stand, which is an odd thing in the Scriptures. Jacob re-names him Benjamin – “son of the right hand.” We’ll come back to why I think that is in a moment. But we see Jacob grieving the loss of his wife and setting up a monument that stood for centuries, even into the time of Moses, proclaiming the greatness of his love for this woman who died completing the full number of Jacob’s sons. There is no name given to that place, like with Deborah, however. You get the impression that Jacob in his grief simply wants to leave that place behind him.

The next account adds distress on top of grief. His oldest son, perhaps in a move to keep Bilhah from becoming Jacob’s new favorite wife (instead of his mother, Leah) takes Bilhah into his bed. The briefness of the account, combined with the fact that it says nothing of Israel’s response (only that he “heard of it”) is a technique of Hebrew literature to underscore the horror and distressing nature of Reuben’s actions. Just in the previous chapter, the sons of Jacob were outraged that a man would lie with Jacob’s daughter, “for such a thing must not be done” (34:7). And here is one of the sons of Jacob lying with Jacob’s own wife! Reuben’s own words condemn him.

There is little more distressing to us than wounds from our own family members.

Then in vv. 27-29, the death of Jacob’s father, Isaac – which is actually some years later – is highlighted to heighten the sense of grief in Jacob’s life. Jacob experiences distress and sorrow upon sorrow and yet what we see is a man who seems able to keep going. Why?

I think the reason why Jacob is able to keep going is that from the words of God he knows that Yahweh is still on the move. We’ve heard the first words of Yahweh to Jacob in this chapter, but look with me at the word that came to Jacob in the midst of all this distress and grief in his life. [Re-read vv. 9-13]

God didn’t really say anything we haven’t heard in the Story so far. But everything He said simply confirmed that the promises He’d already made were sure and certain. Jacob wasn’t who he used to be – he has a new name. He’s Israel now in God’s eyes and his failures aren’t being held against him. God proclaims his power as God Almighty and then says something that reaches back generations to the very beginning. He says to Jacob, “be fruitful and multiply” to show that His intentions toward His people, His creation, have not changed. And he will be the one to bring it about as he promises to make a nation and companies of nations from Jacob. And kings will come from him. And the Land of rest, the place of God dwelling with His people, will certainly come to Jacob and his offspring after him.

As He re-affirmed His promises to Jacob and to his family, what Jacob would have heard is that the Curse of sin that he sees so clearly (and will still see clearly afterward) is not strong enough to stop the Story of Redemption that Yahweh is writing. And the timing of God’s word, the timing! Sandwiched between the loss of Deborah, the death of Rachel, the painful sin of Reuben and the passing of the Patriarch of God’s people is this word of promise for Jacob to embrace as it carries him through it all.

And it seems to me that Jacob did embrace Yahweh and His word. I think that’s the reason why Jacob didn’t let Rachel’s name for her son remain. He had heard hope in the word of Yahweh, that although the Curse seemed so strong in that moment of sorrow, it would not be able to stop Yahweh’s plan of redemption. So he names his son Benjamin, “son of the right hand” to testify not to his own strength, but to the strength of his God. And I think this word of God is what helped Israel keep his peace when Reuben distressed him so deeply. I think the word of God is what carried him through all of his life.

By sending His people His Word in this time of failure and distress and deep grief, He assured them that not only was He aware of their sufferings, He was actively working to make things right. And although Jacob and his family would have to wait for Him to keep His Word, the fulfillment of it was so certain in Jacob’s heart that his faith was strengthened in the face of his failure, distress and grief.

This passage would seem so familiar to the people of Israel as they came out of Egypt. They, too, had been helpless to save themselves but were called out to worship their God in the Promised Land. They, too, had foreign gods, the gods of Egypt, that they were being called to leave behind them in response to the grace and power Yahweh had shown to them. And they, too, would be exposed to real danger as they left Egypt and went into the wilderness – being pursued by the army of Pharaoh. Their life was full of failure, too, and distress and grief.

But the Word of God had come to them, too, through Moses. And Yahweh had declared His intentions to be their God and for them to be His people. And that word with so many others, like His words to Jacob, were enough to carry them through their fears and into worship as they knew they were loved and accepted by God because God himself had told them!

And God always uses His Word to minister to His people in their failure, distress and sorrow.

So, when sin and failure looms large in your mind and it feels like, as it does in my heart sometimes, that the Curse and sin threaten to win in the end, remember that God has not left you alone, but has given you His Word to assure you of His grace. And God has given you a better, more final Word than he ever gave to Israel in the Old Testament. He has spoken to you, the book of Hebrews says, through His Son, Jesus, the very Word of God, who communicates to us grace and forgiveness and calls us out of our fear and into worship of the Living God. Jesus is the Word that became flesh and lived with us. And by becoming one of us and dying on the cross in our place, Jesus speaks to us of a covering for our failure and hope in the midst of distress and grief. Hear the word of God from the lips of Jesus and you will hear the promises of God through which He means to carry you through all of life:

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:37-40 ESV)

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.” (John 10:14-15 ESV)

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 ESV)

With these words and, indeed, all the words of the Scriptures, Yahweh is communicating to His people the greatness of His grace and mercy over our sin and distress and grief. He just ordained it so that all of His grace is embodied in the person of Jesus, whose life, death and new life would make receiving that grace and mercy and forgiveness and new life possible. And the way we receive that grace and forgiveness is the same way Jacob did. We simply believe Yahweh at His Word and direct our faith toward the God who rescues His people. We direct our faith toward Jesus and he rescues us like he did Jacob.

Jesus is the Word of God become flesh. Jesus is the promises to Jacob fulfilled. Jesus is the confirmation that the Curse will have neither the final word in this age or in the age to come. Jesus is the Word of God who carries us through (not around) our sin, our distress and our sorrows and into the hope of glory, the fullness of redemption. By raising him from the dead, we hear Yahweh declaring again His intention to make all things new. And although, like Jacob, we have to wait for the fullness of it to come, the word of God spoken is sure to come to pass. If it seems slow, wait for it. His Word is as sure as the dawn.