But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. Gen 33:4 (NKJV)
Esau and the Wrestle – Parables Series 3 – Part 2
Go to PART 1
(OR go to Parable Series 1 or Parable Series 2)
For a few chapters from Genesis 5, we read the story of Jacob and Esau. Long (and complicated) story short, they were twin brothers, born to Isaac. Upon his father's impending death, Esau, as the oldest, would receive the birthright and a first born son’s blessing. In ancient times, the first born would receive from two thirds to all of his father's wealth. Often, the younger siblings would receive little or nothing. Being the youngest by mere seconds, and less loved by his father than Esau, through a series of events, Jacob deceives his blind father and hungry brother and cheats them of their birthright and blessing, taking it for himself. He then flees.
He ends up at his uncle Laban's house and falls in love with his second born daughter, and asks for her hand in marriage. However, this time around, Jacob finds himself deceived by his uncle and is tricked into marrying the older, blinder, sister. (What you sow is what you reap…). He eventually gets to marry his true love and heads back home to face his brother Esau. The night before the meeting, he is so deeply troubled by all that he had been through; all that he had done to others and that others had done to him; shame, loss, betrayal, cursed, blessed… all of it. And he found himself wrestling with God. (that's a devotion for another time). What did they wrestle out? What was it about?
A lot of the time, my sense of justice is a wrestle. I want to be forgiven, but I withhold forgiveness. I want to be dealt mercy, but I deal mercilessly with others. As Jacob wrestled, he was struck, and he was changed. And the very next day, he met his brother, and instead of being murdered for his wrongs, he is embraced by Esau. He bows to his brother in humility seven times.
To Peter's question of how many times should we forgive, Jesus answered, “Not seven times but seventy times seven!” (Matt 18:22).
Seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety. 77 x 7 = 490
So, have you been keeping score? Do you have individual tally cards for each of your friends and family? Have you tallied your forgiveness needs? That's a lot of counting.
But Jesus wasn’t giving Peter a numerical benchmark. He said ‘seventy times seven’ in a way that we would answer our children when they ask, “are we there yet?” with “we’ll get there when we get there.” It’s not a question of how many chances will we get and how many do we have to give. Right here, the parable presents its first challenge, even before we get to the story. I’m sure we all have people in our lives who seem to consistently let us down. Forgiveness is always a challenge not only because of the situation itself but the frequency with which it occurs.
Here’s a hard truth I’ve learned about myself: for every person who is like that in my life, I’m like that with someone else’s. People let me down. And yes, I have the tendency to let others down too. Maybe in different ways and severities… I would hope that I am a more consistent friend to those whom I share my life with than some who seem to dance around the edges of mine… But at the end of the day, I am just as guilty as those who I say of, “I’m done! I’ve had enough.”
Jacob bowed before Esau seven times, not because it was a magical number or the appropriate amount of times according to the sins he had committed against him… but because he bowed seven times. Seventy times seven is just a way of saying, the number doesn’t make any difference. The difference, the change, the growth, and the gold comes through the wrestle. Jacob tells us this by the way he walks.
Is forgiveness hard? Is asking for forgiveness hard? If it’s a wrestle for you, then let it be a wrestle and fight it out within yourself until it changes the way you live. That's something that the unjust servant in Jesus parable was unable to do.
Go to Part 3 – Debt Crisis
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