Last Monday I watched a movie, a western of course, about the Johnson County range war.  It was called "Heaven's Gate," and was a fairly accurate re-creation of the historic battle between the immigrants and cattle barons in 1890s Wyoming.  The title, "Heaven's Gate," symbolized the hopes and dreams of the thousands of immigrants who flocked to the free homestead lands, and, instead of reaching "heaven," incurred the wrath of the Wyoming residents already there.  Dreaming of heaven, they met death and destruction.  Much like what could have happened when Jacob met his twin brother Esau.  But why would twins be such enemies?

          Jacob and Esau are the most famous twins in the Bible.  Esau was the oldest, and believed he was the center of the universe.  Firstborn are like that, expecting people to get along with them, not vice versa.  Their attitude to others is, "And who are you?"

          Second-born children are different.  They are more apt to be the family cain-raisers.  While parents can often keep a firstborn child in line with a frown or a sharp word, a second-born child sometimes needs a 2 x 4 just to get his attention!

          Jacob was the second child, but just barely.  When the twins were being born, the Bible says that Jacob grabbed his twin brother by the heel and tried to pull him back in so that he, Jacob, could be born first - that's serious rivalry!  His name Jacob means "deceiver," and Esau's name means "hairy".  So we have "Tricky" and "Hairy," seriously competitive brothers born into a dysfunctional family.

          Why disfunctional?  Well, Isaac the father loves Esau the hairy, while Rebekah the mother favors Jacob the tricky.  And neither parent seems to trust the other.  When it comes time for the blessing on the eldest, father Isaac tries to sneak behind their backs to bless Esau secretly.  Mother Rebekah overhears his scheme and turns tables.  She dresses up Jacob in his hairy brother's outfit and tricks old blind Isaac into blessing him instead of Esau.  Esau is cheated out of his inheritance and gets really mad and plots to kill Jacob.  Now that's a truly dysfunctional family!

          Instead of sitting down and trying to work things out, Jacob responds in an all too familiar manner.  He says, "I'm out of here!" and runs.  The trouble is, Jacob forgot that no matter where we go, we take ourselves and our problems along, including our family.  Boys may be half a world away from home, but pretty soon they start acting like their dad.  And young women in their 20s or 30s will do or say something, then exclaim in horror, "Oh no, I'm turning into my mother."

          But we can't run away from ourselves or our relatives.  Families shape how we talk, act, and treat others.  You can't just jump on a camel and leave it all behind.  We carry our family with us, and in Jacob's case it was the Isaac family trait of selfishness.

          Jacob is basically a selfish man.  In today's Old Testament Lesson, Jacob flees into the wilderness, falls asleep on a stone pillow, and dreams of a ladder up to heaven.  Yup, it's the famous Jacob's ladder we sing about.  In that dream, God stands at the top of the ladder and tells Jacob the same thing He told his grandfather Abraham: "You're gonna get all this land, and your family will be huge, and everybody from now on will be blessed by you." (Genesis 28:15, RTV - Revised Tasler Version)

          But Jacob reacts totally differently than Abraham.  When grandfather Abraham heard those words, he bowed in humility.  Jacob, on the other hand, plays "Let's Make a Deal" with God.  He says, "If You let me do this, that, and the the other thing, if you make me a rip-roaring success, then I'll let you be my God.  And I might even give you a tenth of my wealth - that's the kind of good guy I am." (Genesis 28:20-22 - RTV)

          There we see it.  Jacob is looking out for number one.  With an attitude like that, God should stomp on him right there.  But Jacob is a key figure of history, and God sees him as a work in progress.  God sees us all that way - works in progress.  If God treated us like He could, we'd all be doomed.  But He loves us in spite of what we do and sees beyond our foolishness.  God sees the big picture - the picture of salvation.

          Finally, after 20 years, God tells Jacob it's time to deal with family stuff, the old grudges, the childhood hurts.  It's time to visit his brother Esau.  Predictably, Jacob doesn't want to go, but finally does because God orders him to.

          But as he sets out, he's told, "Esau is on his way to meet you, and he has 400 soldiers."  So Jacob the deceiver goes to work.  He puts together herds of goats, camels and donkeys to be sent ahead, as a gift, to soften up old Esau.  Then Jacob sends his wives and children ahead, almost like a shield.  But before he meets Esau, Jacob must spend one more night alone with God.

          And that night changed his life, for the Bible tells us Jacob wrestled with someone until it was dawn.  At first Jacob thought the stranger was an angel, but then he realized it was God Himself.  For his entire life, Jacob has been trying to control things, but that night he lost control against Almighty God.

          How can we envision that wrestling match?  Like a 350 lb. NFL lineman wrestling with his three-year-old?  It shouldn't have lasted five seconds, but sometimes a three-year-old refuses to give up.  They wrestled all night and at dawn Jacob was a mass of bruises and his hip was dislocated.  But Jacob was now transformed.  He became a new person.  During the night God asked him, "What is your name?" He confessed, "I am Jacob, the schemer."  And God said, "Now your name shall be Israel, for you have struggled with God and prevailed." Jacob got a new name, struggler with God, and a new beginning in life.  And so Jacob called that place Bethel, the House of God, the gate of heaven.  The name still stands there today.

          Many of us have been through dark nights of the soul when we've wrestled with God.  And it's painful, because we must face ourselves.  But usually we come out stronger.  There is no life without pain, hurt and disappointment.  If we want to be like Christ, there will be pain.  Life has hard questions and sometimes no visible answers.  We cannot see how a bad event could possibly help us.  God lets tragic things happen for no apparent reason, so we wrestle with Him over unanswered questions.  And that is how we grow.

          The morning after his encounter with God, Jacob limped across the river and they embraced each other, a humbled Jacob and a matured Esau.  Animosity was forgiven.  Old hurts were set aside.  And then they parted!  Esau went south and Israel (Jacob) went north to the land God promised him and his grandfather.  And there, not far from Heaven's Gate, he built an altar and dedicated the land to God.

          God kept His promises to them and He keeps His promises to us.  Through Jacob all people have been blessed.  All who trust in Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus descendant of Jacob, will pass through Heaven's Gate.  Some will be limping, some hard of hearing, and some half blind, and all weary from the trail.  But by faith all will come through Heaven's Gate.  And God will embrace us, the humbled and matured.  All will be forgiven.  But unlike Jacob and Esau, we'll stay with God. There's no need to go elsewhere.  Passing through Heaven's Gate, we have come to our final destination.

          Life is a process to get to the presence of God.  Things now may look bad, but for the believer, life will end up good.  In the rear view mirror, life isn't so fearful.  In the rear view mirror of life, things are not as close as they appear.  May God show us all His mercy, and may we find Him ready to receive us with open arms, His sons and daughters who have come home, walking joyfully and gratefully, through Heaven's Gate.  Amen

Copyright © 2006 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.