Reminiscere Sunday (Lent 2)
Genesis 32:22-32 and Matthew 15:21-28
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
March 16, 2025
Last week, Jesus taught us how to wrestle with Satan and win. This week Jesus teaches us how to wrestle with God and win. In our Old Testament lesson from Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with a man, whom he later identifies as God. This man was the preincarnate Christ. But to understand this struggle between Jacob and God, we need to fill in some context. In Genesis 28, after Jacob had cheated his older brother Esau out of his blessing, he fled to his uncle Laban’s. As he slept on a rock, God appeared to him in a vision with a ladder to heaven and said to Jacob, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and in your offspring all families of the earth will be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (vss. 13-15) And so, Jacob went with great encouragement of faith to Laban’s house, where God immensely blessed him. Despite Laban trying to cheat Jacob repeatedly, Jacob departed from Laban a rich man, with wives, children, and large herds and flocks.
However, in Genesis 32, Jacob receives reports that his brother Esau was approaching with 400 men to meet him. After dividing his camps, Jacob bows down and prays to God, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But You said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” (vss. 9-12)
You are hard-pressed to find a better prayer than that! Jacob addresses God as God introduced Himself to Jacob. He confesses his own unworthiness to receive anything good from God, but rather confesses what God promised to do for him. All Christians should model their prayers after this prayer of Jacob. Yet, how did God react to this exemplary prayer? Does He reveal Himself to Jacob and assure him that He will protect him from Esau and fulfill His promise? No. The Lord is silent. He doesn’t answer him a word. Then, to make matters worse, He appears to Jacob as a man and wrestles with him all night long. Yet, though God knocked Jacob’s hip out of joint, Jacob held on saying, “I will not let go until you bless me.” And so, God blessed Jacob, renaming him Israel, because he had striven with God and man and yet prevailed. And in the morning, Esau greets his brother in peace, and Jacob’s nightmare is over.
Thus, Jacob gives us a master class in wrestling with God and winning. Jacob teaches us three things to do to win in a wrestling match with God. First, hold fast to God’s promises found in His Word. God gave Jacob a certain promise that He would bless him with a large family and bring him back to the land of his fathers, so that all families of the earth could be blessed through His offspring (that is through Jesus). And God promised not to leave him until He had accomplished what He promised. So, Jacob held on to that promise. He prayed according to that promise, because faith holds only to God’s promises. Second, Jacob teaches us to be humble. Jacob confessed that he was not worthy of any of the good things God had given him or would give him. He relied solely on God’s promise. Faith does not depend on our worthiness, but on God’s promises. Finally, Jacob was persistent. When God was silent to him and when it appeared that God was saying, ‘no,’ and going back on His promise by wrestling him through the night, Jacob persisted. He held on to God’s promise, insisting on it, and would not let go until God had blessed him. And God did. And so, the nation of Israel and indeed all the faithful are now called by Jacob’s new name, Israel, because of his great example of faith.
Yet, 18 centuries later, a daughter of Israel gives us another master class on wrestling with God, following the example of Jacob, her father in the faith. Yet, this woman was not a daughter of Israel through blood. She was a Canaanite woman, a descendent of the people God promised to remove from the land of Israel, so that Jacob’s descendants could live there instead. However, because of the children of Israel’s disobedience, God left the Canaanites as a thorn in their side. Yet, now, this daughter of Canaan, this Gentile from the most cursed family on earth, claims a seat at the table of Israel.
She cries out to Jesus, because her daughter is terribly oppressed by a demon. Yet, Jesus ignores her, not saying a word to her. She continues to cry out until Jesus’ disciples ask him to send her away, because she is annoying them. Yet, Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” pointing out that she is a Canaanite. Then when the woman kneels before Jesus and says, “Lord, help me!” Jesus insults her by saying, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and feed it to the dogs.” So, it appears that Jesus not only says she is not of the household of Israel, but she is an unworthy dog.
Yet, the faithful Canaanite woman grasps at these words. “You call me a dog? Fine, I’m a dog. But even a dog eats the crumbs that fall from its master’s table.” With these words, the woman won her wrestling match as Jesus hoped she would. That was the pinning combination. First, she clings to the promise of God. She calls Jesus the Son of David, which means that she is confessing Him to be the Christ. She believed that He would be a light even to the nations, as Scripture promises (Isaiah 42:6). She appears to have heard Jesus’ teaching, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7) Next, the woman was humble. She was not discouraged when Jesus ignored her or insulted her. She did not claim to be worthy of what she asked, but only clung to the promise found in Jesus’ Word. Finally, she was persistent. She would hold on to Jesus’ words until she found the “yes” her faith was looking for. And so, she proved herself to be a true daughter of Israel, because it is not all who are descendants of Israel who belong to Israel, but those of faith (Romans 9:6).
These saints teach you to hold fast to God’s promises in Scripture, because true saving faith can only rest on God’s promises in Christ Jesus. These saints teach you to be humble, because we do not receive our salvation or any good thing based on our worthiness, but by God’s grace according to His promises in Christ. And they teach us to be persistent, because we don’t need our faith for a little while, but the entire way, because only through faith may we be saved. You have received wonderful promises from God through Jesus Christ. Yet, as with Jacob and this Canaanite woman, God has sent you tribulation. And though, you compose the perfect prayer, God is often silent to you. Then thoughts come to you that the promise was not meant for you and that you are unworthy to receive God’s grace because of your sin. So, what do you do? You say, “Yes, Lord, you are right. I am unworthy. I am a poor miserable sinner.” If the Canaanite woman can say, “I am a dog. So, give me a dog’s due.” Then you can say, “I am a sinner. Give me what you promise sinners.” Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13) And Scripture declares, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15) So, Jesus, You said that You have come to save sinners! I am a sinner. Save me! You said that heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents. I am a sinner who turns to you. Rejoice over me!
“But you said!” Jacob cried to God. Thus, we pray to God. You said that as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ and that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved (Galatians 3:27; Mark 16:16). You said, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.” (John 16:23) You said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) You said, “Whoever comes to me, I will by no means cast out,” (John 6:37) You said, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!” (Romans 8:1) This is how you defeat Jesus in a wrestling match. You catch Him in His words!
Jesus wants you to win your wrestling match against Him. He wants you to overcome everything through faith in His Word. He wants you to persist in prayer in His name until God grants you what you pray for. When speaking of wrestling God, we are not speaking of God as our adversary, but as He who challenges us for our own good.
Yet, how is it for your own good that God wrestles with you? St. Peter tells us in his first epistle, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7) God wrestles with us to test our faith as gold and silver are tested and purified in the crucible. He does this to strengthen our faith, so that Satan cannot defeat us, so that the world and our sinful flesh may not destroy our faith. St. John writes, “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” (1 John 5:4) A faith that can withstand God’s test can most certainly overcome Satan and the world.
One thing you’ll notice when reflecting on Jacob’s match with God is that you forget about Esau. God is much bigger than Esau. And when reflecting on the woman and Jesus, you forget about the demon oppressing her daughter. Not that Esau and the demon are not problems that need to be addressed, but we learn that God is so much greater. If God answers you, what is man, what is a demon, what is death, sin, or hell against God? What is cancer, poverty, and pain against God? God wrestles with us to turn our focus from the lesser to the greater. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the rest will be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)
Finally, God wrestles with us for the sake of our sanctification, as St. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4. God desires us to be pure, avoiding sexual immorality and every other sin. When we are pulled away from ourselves and the world and Satan to wrestle with God, burying ourselves in His Word and prayer to seek our victory, then we have less of an opportunity to sin and we become stronger against sin. Jacob limped in his body after his match with Christ, yet He walked more steadily in God’s path.
So, do not be discouraged when God challenges you. Rather hold on tighter to Him. Cling to His promises found in His Word, pray fervently with a repentant heart. God wrestles with those whom He loves. Hold fast to God’s promises in Christ, and He will bless you. Amen.
Genesis 32:22-32 and Matthew 15:21-28
Pastor James Preus
Trinity Lutheran Church
March 16, 2025
Last week, Jesus taught us how to wrestle with Satan and win. This week Jesus teaches us how to wrestle with God and win. In our Old Testament lesson from Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with a man, whom he later identifies as God. This man was the preincarnate Christ. But to understand this struggle between Jacob and God, we need to fill in some context. In Genesis 28, after Jacob had cheated his older brother Esau out of his blessing, he fled to his uncle Laban’s. As he slept on a rock, God appeared to him in a vision with a ladder to heaven and said to Jacob, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and in your offspring all families of the earth will be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (vss. 13-15) And so, Jacob went with great encouragement of faith to Laban’s house, where God immensely blessed him. Despite Laban trying to cheat Jacob repeatedly, Jacob departed from Laban a rich man, with wives, children, and large herds and flocks.
However, in Genesis 32, Jacob receives reports that his brother Esau was approaching with 400 men to meet him. After dividing his camps, Jacob bows down and prays to God, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But You said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” (vss. 9-12)
You are hard-pressed to find a better prayer than that! Jacob addresses God as God introduced Himself to Jacob. He confesses his own unworthiness to receive anything good from God, but rather confesses what God promised to do for him. All Christians should model their prayers after this prayer of Jacob. Yet, how did God react to this exemplary prayer? Does He reveal Himself to Jacob and assure him that He will protect him from Esau and fulfill His promise? No. The Lord is silent. He doesn’t answer him a word. Then, to make matters worse, He appears to Jacob as a man and wrestles with him all night long. Yet, though God knocked Jacob’s hip out of joint, Jacob held on saying, “I will not let go until you bless me.” And so, God blessed Jacob, renaming him Israel, because he had striven with God and man and yet prevailed. And in the morning, Esau greets his brother in peace, and Jacob’s nightmare is over.
Thus, Jacob gives us a master class in wrestling with God and winning. Jacob teaches us three things to do to win in a wrestling match with God. First, hold fast to God’s promises found in His Word. God gave Jacob a certain promise that He would bless him with a large family and bring him back to the land of his fathers, so that all families of the earth could be blessed through His offspring (that is through Jesus). And God promised not to leave him until He had accomplished what He promised. So, Jacob held on to that promise. He prayed according to that promise, because faith holds only to God’s promises. Second, Jacob teaches us to be humble. Jacob confessed that he was not worthy of any of the good things God had given him or would give him. He relied solely on God’s promise. Faith does not depend on our worthiness, but on God’s promises. Finally, Jacob was persistent. When God was silent to him and when it appeared that God was saying, ‘no,’ and going back on His promise by wrestling him through the night, Jacob persisted. He held on to God’s promise, insisting on it, and would not let go until God had blessed him. And God did. And so, the nation of Israel and indeed all the faithful are now called by Jacob’s new name, Israel, because of his great example of faith.
Yet, 18 centuries later, a daughter of Israel gives us another master class on wrestling with God, following the example of Jacob, her father in the faith. Yet, this woman was not a daughter of Israel through blood. She was a Canaanite woman, a descendent of the people God promised to remove from the land of Israel, so that Jacob’s descendants could live there instead. However, because of the children of Israel’s disobedience, God left the Canaanites as a thorn in their side. Yet, now, this daughter of Canaan, this Gentile from the most cursed family on earth, claims a seat at the table of Israel.
She cries out to Jesus, because her daughter is terribly oppressed by a demon. Yet, Jesus ignores her, not saying a word to her. She continues to cry out until Jesus’ disciples ask him to send her away, because she is annoying them. Yet, Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” pointing out that she is a Canaanite. Then when the woman kneels before Jesus and says, “Lord, help me!” Jesus insults her by saying, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and feed it to the dogs.” So, it appears that Jesus not only says she is not of the household of Israel, but she is an unworthy dog.
Yet, the faithful Canaanite woman grasps at these words. “You call me a dog? Fine, I’m a dog. But even a dog eats the crumbs that fall from its master’s table.” With these words, the woman won her wrestling match as Jesus hoped she would. That was the pinning combination. First, she clings to the promise of God. She calls Jesus the Son of David, which means that she is confessing Him to be the Christ. She believed that He would be a light even to the nations, as Scripture promises (Isaiah 42:6). She appears to have heard Jesus’ teaching, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7) Next, the woman was humble. She was not discouraged when Jesus ignored her or insulted her. She did not claim to be worthy of what she asked, but only clung to the promise found in Jesus’ Word. Finally, she was persistent. She would hold on to Jesus’ words until she found the “yes” her faith was looking for. And so, she proved herself to be a true daughter of Israel, because it is not all who are descendants of Israel who belong to Israel, but those of faith (Romans 9:6).
These saints teach you to hold fast to God’s promises in Scripture, because true saving faith can only rest on God’s promises in Christ Jesus. These saints teach you to be humble, because we do not receive our salvation or any good thing based on our worthiness, but by God’s grace according to His promises in Christ. And they teach us to be persistent, because we don’t need our faith for a little while, but the entire way, because only through faith may we be saved. You have received wonderful promises from God through Jesus Christ. Yet, as with Jacob and this Canaanite woman, God has sent you tribulation. And though, you compose the perfect prayer, God is often silent to you. Then thoughts come to you that the promise was not meant for you and that you are unworthy to receive God’s grace because of your sin. So, what do you do? You say, “Yes, Lord, you are right. I am unworthy. I am a poor miserable sinner.” If the Canaanite woman can say, “I am a dog. So, give me a dog’s due.” Then you can say, “I am a sinner. Give me what you promise sinners.” Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13) And Scripture declares, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15) So, Jesus, You said that You have come to save sinners! I am a sinner. Save me! You said that heaven rejoices over one sinner who repents. I am a sinner who turns to you. Rejoice over me!
“But you said!” Jacob cried to God. Thus, we pray to God. You said that as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ and that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved (Galatians 3:27; Mark 16:16). You said, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.” (John 16:23) You said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) You said, “Whoever comes to me, I will by no means cast out,” (John 6:37) You said, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!” (Romans 8:1) This is how you defeat Jesus in a wrestling match. You catch Him in His words!
Jesus wants you to win your wrestling match against Him. He wants you to overcome everything through faith in His Word. He wants you to persist in prayer in His name until God grants you what you pray for. When speaking of wrestling God, we are not speaking of God as our adversary, but as He who challenges us for our own good.
Yet, how is it for your own good that God wrestles with you? St. Peter tells us in his first epistle, “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7) God wrestles with us to test our faith as gold and silver are tested and purified in the crucible. He does this to strengthen our faith, so that Satan cannot defeat us, so that the world and our sinful flesh may not destroy our faith. St. John writes, “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” (1 John 5:4) A faith that can withstand God’s test can most certainly overcome Satan and the world.
One thing you’ll notice when reflecting on Jacob’s match with God is that you forget about Esau. God is much bigger than Esau. And when reflecting on the woman and Jesus, you forget about the demon oppressing her daughter. Not that Esau and the demon are not problems that need to be addressed, but we learn that God is so much greater. If God answers you, what is man, what is a demon, what is death, sin, or hell against God? What is cancer, poverty, and pain against God? God wrestles with us to turn our focus from the lesser to the greater. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the rest will be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)
Finally, God wrestles with us for the sake of our sanctification, as St. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4. God desires us to be pure, avoiding sexual immorality and every other sin. When we are pulled away from ourselves and the world and Satan to wrestle with God, burying ourselves in His Word and prayer to seek our victory, then we have less of an opportunity to sin and we become stronger against sin. Jacob limped in his body after his match with Christ, yet He walked more steadily in God’s path.
So, do not be discouraged when God challenges you. Rather hold on tighter to Him. Cling to His promises found in His Word, pray fervently with a repentant heart. God wrestles with those whom He loves. Hold fast to God’s promises in Christ, and He will bless you. Amen.
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