September 17, 2023
Reading: Genesis 33
Focus: Genesis 33:4 – But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.
Father God, Thank You for Your blessings. Thank You that I woke up this morning. Help us to learn what you have for us today. In Jesus Name, Amen.
What are the hardest words to say in the English language, or for that matter, any language? “I am sorry.” Three simple words that can bring the greatest of men to their knees. Three simple words can and do change the lives of many people. But why are they so hard to say? And why do we fear to say them? Apologies make us humble ourselves and admit that we have faults. When we apologize, we make ourselves vulnerable and yield our power and control to another. That is sooo not easy to do.
We find Jacob on his way to meet Esau in person. All the preparations have been made and a plan has been put into motion. The herds and flocks had been sent ahead and now Jacob sees Esau, his brother, and four hundred men coming. He had each of his maid servants take their own children and put them in the front of the procession. Then Leah and her children. Finally, Rachel and Joseph, in the back of the parade. Jacob went on ahead. I thinking he went first to try to spare his family from Esau’s supposed wrath.
Jacob bowed low to the ground seven times before his brother. This bowing was a sign of respect given to a king. Jacob was trying very hard to humble himself before his brother. He knew that he had wrong Esau, not once but twice. He was hoping that the gifts and the obeisance would pacify Esau. But Jacob didn’t meet an angry Esau. The past 20 years had mellowed Esau and he met Jacob with love. Esau met him with a huge hug and a kiss of peace. Can you believe it? The anger that Esau had toward Jacob twenty years ago was gone. Apparently, Esau learned that family was more important than land. And Jacob learned that deceit was not a worthwhile venture. He had been paid back in full by Laban’s trickery in more ways than one.
Jacob had sent many gifts on ahead to Esau. . He had sent 220 goats, 220 sheep, thirty camels and their young, 50 head of cattle and 30 donkeys. That was a huge amount of wealth that Jacob gave away. There are many reasons for those types of gifts. It could have been a bribe. Gifts are still, to this day, to win over people to your way of thinking. It could have simply been a gift of love to Esau. We give gifts to those we love all the time. Just to let them know we care about them. Or it could have been a customary way of greeting someone before an important meeting. Most gifts of this type were an indication of one’s profession. Jacob was a shepherd and so was Esau. So, the gifts were appropriate for their professions.
Esau asked why all the livestock had been sent ahead to him. Jacob replied that he wanted to find favor in Esau’s eyes. Jacob didn’t want Esau to still be angry with him. Esau wasn’t having any of it. He didn’t need more than he already had. But Jacob insisted. He told Esau that seeing him with the love and forgiveness that Esau had toward him was like seeing the face of God. Jacob insisted God had been gracious to him and that he had all he needed. Esau finally accepted the gifts of Jacob because of his insistence.
Esau invited Jacob to come back to his home, but Jacob gently refused. The Bible does not say why but Jacob’s excuse was for the welfare of his family and his livestock. He said that he didn’t want to overtax them, and he would arrive later. He also refused the men that Esau wanted to leave with him. So, Esau headed back to his home in Seir in the south. But Jacob did not follow him to Seir. He went north instead. He stopped in Sukkoth and then traveled to Shechem.
Jacob built temporary shelters for his family and livestock and which is why the area became known as Sukkoth. The name Sukkoth means huts, booths or tents. Eventually, Jacob travelled on to Shechem and camped within sight of the city. There he purchase a plot of land for one hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. There Jacob built an altar to God and called it “El Elohe Israel”, meaning “God is the God of Israel”. That is a pretty big testimony. Jacob had seen angels descending and ascending the stairway to heaven. He had wrestled with God and been given a new name. He was the bearer of the Covenant of Abraham. God was most certainly the God of Jacob, or rather Israel, as he would be known.
I see a picture of Jesus here. Man comes to Jesus. We often try to make deals with Him. We try to clean up to come to Him. We offer what ever we think will please Him. All to get Him to save us and help us. Jesus sees the ‘gifts’ we offer but that is not what He wants. He want a relationship with us. Just as we are. There is nothing we can do or give to buy forgiveness and salvation. We are given the gift of grace.
The primary act of God’s grace is the forgiveness of our sins. We must recognize that we are sinners. We break the law of God. We are sinful from conception. It is not something we learn. It is something we are. The law of God says that sin is punishable by death. When man first sinned, he began to die. That is the physical death. But there is also eternal death. Total separation from God. So, as sinners we will not only die physically but we will also die spiritually, totally separated from God and suffering in hell. But here is where Grace steps in. God is not willing for any of us to be separated from Him.
Way back in Genesis 3, God already had a plan for the penalty of sin to be paid. Jesus was that plan. Jesus came to earth to teach us about the kingdom of God. To pave the way for our understanding of His death on the cross. God shed the blood of an animal in the Garden of Eden to cover Adam and Eve’s sin. They continued to make blood sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin. When Moses went to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Law directly from God, he was given the rules and laws regarding the sacrifices for sin. The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant for the forgiveness of the sin of the people of Israel. Those sacrifices continued down through the centuries, until Jesus’ death on the cross, which was the ultimate sacrifice.
I read a book a number of years ago about a man who claimed that he had seen the Ark of the Covenant under the Temple Mount. He said it was under Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. He also said, at Jesus’ death the mountain cracked from the hole where the cross stood down to the cavern where the Ark sits. So, when Jesus, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, died, His blood flowed down through that crack in the mountain and dripped onto the Mercy Seat of the Ark. If that is true, and it makes all the sense in the world to me, then the Lamb of God, Jesus, was sacrificed for the sin of all mankind and His Blood was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant as prescribed by God in the Law given to Moses at Mount Sinai, fulfilling the Law. Jesus said He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). Sounds fulfilled to me.
OK, we have established that grace is a gift. How do we accept it? We must humble ourselves before God and admit that we are sinners. We must accept the blood of Jesus to cover our sin by faith. And we must confess our sins and ask forgiveness. 1 – 2 – 3. Easy, right? So easy it’s hard. It’s hard for us to acknowledge that we are sinners and to be humble enough to ask for forgiveness. It’s also hard to believe that asking God, whom we cannot see, to take away our sins and never hold them against us again. And faith that we are forgiven and have been given eternal life. But faith is sometimes not too easy either. But I believe it can be. I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again.
A little child has the faith that Daddy will catch him when Daddy tells him to jump. We can have that same kind of faith. God will catch us when He asks us to jump. Jesus pointed to little children as the model of faith. Children are humble, unworldly, simple and teachable in direct contrast to self-seeking, worldly, distrustful and conceited adults (Matthew 18:3). I have one question for you.
Will you jump?
Father God, Help us to have faith in You. Faith that You forgive our sins if we ask. Faith that Jesus blood covers those sins. And faith that by believing we will not die. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Food For Thought
- Why is it so hard to say, “I’m sorry”?
- What do you think Jacob was trying to do by sending all that livestock?
- What do you think Jacob was thinking when he saw Esau and his 400 men?
- Why do you think coming to Christ is difficult for some people?
- What does the gift of grace mean to you?
