A New Car!
Imagine that you’re just out of college and about to start your first job and your car is on its last leg. It’s way past time to replace it with something more dependable. So you go to the car dealership and pick out a new car and start filling out the paperwork. But then one of the managers walks over to you and says that you’ll be getting the car for free. It just so happens that this is the 500th car the dealership has sold since opening and the owner wants to mark the occasion by giving away a free car.
What would you feel in that moment? You would probably feel a strange mixture of confusion and relief wash over your body. You would wonder, “Is this a joke? This can’t be happening. This is too good to be true, but if it is true I’ll never forget this.” Tears of joy well up and you walk out of the dealership with a new hopefulness and confidence about life.
Too Good to Be True?
Someone has said, “The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about the Christian’s faith is that it obviously presumes far too much. It is too good to be true.”[1]
What does this mean? It means that when we present the gospel to someone who doesn’t yet believe it, it should seem unbelievable. It should strike them as an impossibility, as something that’s made up because offers like that just don’t exist in the world.
The good news of the gospel is that God is like the owner of that car dealership. Out of the abundant wealth of his love, he gives us mercy when we least expect it and when we don’t deserve it. That the God who created us would want to live with us when we’ve done nothing but ignore and minimize him since birth is beyond explanation. It sounds too good to be true.
Unexpected and Extravagant Love
This too-good-to-be-true sensation is what we find in Genesis 33 when Jacob finally meets his brother Esau. In a way that no one sees coming, especially Jacob, Esau lavishes love on Jacob, showing us the unexpected and extravagant nature of God’s love.
The main point of this text and this sermon is that God’s love, like Esau’s for Jacob, is unexpected and extravagant and that it can be trusted. First, we’ll see Jacob meeting Esau (vv. 1-11) and second, we’ll see Jacob leaving Esau (vv. 12-20). My prayer is that this text reminds us that God loves giving us more than we deserve.
Jacob Meets Esau
In verses 1-11, Jacob meets Esau. This is an amazing scene. Jacob and Esau are finally meeting after twenty years. The air must’ve been electric.
When Jacob sees Esau and his entourage approaching, in verse 2 he divides up his family again, just as he had done the day before (32:7). His favoritism toward Rachel and Joseph is evident by Jacob putting them last in the company, ensuring that they’ll have the best chance to escape if things go sideways with Esau.
Verse 3 says that Jacob “went on before them.” The night before it appeared that Jacob was sending his family first while he stayed at the back (32:22-23). But this shows us that the new Israel is triumphing over the old fear-dominated Jacob. His wrestling match with God left him with a new limp and with a new courage.
Verse 3 also says that Jacob “bowed himself to the ground seven times” as he approached Esau. Jacob surely remembers the words that his father Isaac spoke over him, the blessing meant for Esau. Part of that blessing was, “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you” (27:29). By bowing before Esau, it seems that Jacob is trying to undo his great act of deception when he took the blessing that rightly belonged to Esau.
Throughout this scene we see Jacob trying to give gifts to Esau, attempting to return the blessing that should have been Esau’s. Perhaps this was done out of fear and self-preservation. Or perhaps the all-night wrestling match with God broke something in Jacob’s heart and not just his hip. Like Zacchaeus, perhaps God’s love was leading him to make restitution to the person he’d hurt (Lk. 19:1-10).
An Unexpected Embrace
No one, least of all Jacob, expects Esau’s greeting (v. 4). Jacob expected revenge from Esau, or at least heavy bargaining to appease him. We the reader have no reason to think that Jacob’s fears aren’t well-founded. Jacob had stolen the birthright and the blessing from Esau, and Esau wanted to kill him (27:41). We’d understand if Esau killed him on the spot. Nothing prepares us to see Esau running and embracing and kissing and weeping with his brother. Esau has obviously had a change of heart.
Why are we surprised when this is what Jacob prayed for in 32:11? Oh how often do we ask the Lord to do things that we don’t actually think that he can do! Esau’s posture is the result of Jacob’s prayer. As the hymn says, “Lord, now indeed I find thy power and thine alone, can change the leper’s spots and melt the heart of stone.”
Jacob is approaching with seven bows; Esau is approaching with hugs and kisses. All of Jacob’s plans and schemes to appease his brother pale in comparison to his brother’s joy upon his return. Esau lavishes unexpected and extravagant love on his wayward brother.
This is not what we’d expect from Esau, the son who’s outside the covenant promises of God. But it’s Esau, not Jacob, who reveals something of God’s heart in this moment. Even Jacob realizes this, for he says in verse 10, “For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.” In his brother Jacob sees something of his God.
Another Prodigal Son
The language used here is picked up by Jesus in one of his most famous stories, the parable of the prodigal son. Remember what happens? A father has two sons. One of them chooses to take his father’s wealth and run away and squander it in foolish living. Eventually, he comes to his senses and decides to return home and make things right with this father.
But then the unbelievable happens. Jesus says, “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him (sound familiar?). And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found’” (Lk. 15:20-24).
This father doesn’t wait with folded arms and furrowed brow on the front porch. As soon as he sees his son coming home, compassion wells up in him and he takes off running and grabs his son and kisses him before he can even get his apology out.
The God Jesus is describing loves sinners so much that he runs to them in their shame. He even goes after the self-righteous older brother who’s upset that dad has been so extravagantly kind to his brother and begs him to come into the celebration (vv. 25-32). Jesus, like Esau, moves toward sinners, whether self-righteous or unrighteous. Jesus isn’t repelled by sinners.
“The Friend of Sinners”
Remember what Jesus’ enemies called him? “The friend of sinners” (Mt. 11:19, Lk. 7:34). This accusation, though laced with contempt, is a deep comfort for those who know themselves to be in this category. Is this you? These are the people who were drawn to be around Jesus. Luke says that “sinners were drawing near to hear him” (15:1). Those who knew themselves to be sinners felt safe around Jesus.
It’s the self-righteous who don’t want to be around him. They assume that he’s more like an employer than a friend. So they work their hands to the bone building an edifice of moral superiority and religious zeal so that others will assume that they’re good with God, when all the while their hearts are hard and empty and angry and devoid of grace.
But those who feel the weight of their shame and guilt are drawn to Jesus. Listen to how Dane Ortlund describes Jesus as “the friend of sinners”:
“What does it mean that Christ is a friend of sinners? At the very least, it means that he enjoys spending time with them. It also means that they feel welcome and comfortable around him…They are at ease around him. They sense something different about him. Others hold them at arms’ length, but Jesus offers the enticing intrigue of fresh hope. What he is really doing, at bottom, is pulling them into his heart.”[2]
Jesus, as Paul understood, came into the world to save sinners, not people with assumed righteousness. Jesus lived a life of perfect fulfillment of God’s law, hung on a cross in agonizing pain, and rose from the dead so that sinners can be reconciled to the holy God who made them, so that God’s judgment will be turned away from them, leaving only mercy and love for them.
Everyone who acknowledges their sin and Jesus’ sufficiency to forgive it will be forgiven. Like Esau, God runs toward those who understand their need and lavishes the abundant riches of his love on them, leaving them thinking, “This seems too good to be true!” But it is true. In Jesus, God surprises us with his vast and free and steadfast love.
The end of verse 4 says, “and they wept.” Esau’s approach broke something in Jacob. Jacob knew what he’d done. He knew that he deserved to die, to pay severely for what he’d done. But when approached with the warmth and love and affection of his brother, emotion welled up in him that he probably didn’t expect. And so it is with the love of God. It often touches us and breaks us in places we aren’t prepared for.
Jacob Returns the Blessing to Esau
The ice is broken between Jacob and Esau. The would-be murderer has become a reconciled brother. Now they can start their conversation.
In verse 5, Esau is curious, wondering, “Who are these people?” Jacob introduces his family, who all bow themselves before Esau just like Jacob did (vv. 6-7). Then Esau asks about the barrage of livestock he’s met on the way in verse 8. Jacob honestly admits that it was a gesture to secure favor from Esau. In verse 9, Esau says he doesn’t need the gift, but in verse 10 Jacob insists that he have it and in verse 11 Esau finally complies.
Perhaps Jacob insists that Esau receive his gift because he couldn’t be sure of his forgiveness if he refuses his attempt to make amends. Perhaps he insists because he wants Esau to receive the blessing that he’d stolen from him (note the word “blessing” used in verse 11). Either way, Jacob wants to give rather than take a blessing away from Esau.
Jacob Leaves Esau
Their meeting is unexpectedly warm, and unexpectedly short. In verses 12-20, we see Jacob leaving Esau. Esau invites Jacob to come with him to the land of Seir (v. 12). But Jacob courteously declines the offer, saying that his children and herds can’t keep up with Esau and his band of warriors (vv. 13-14).
Ironically, in verse 15, it turns out that the men who came with Esau aren’t for battle with Jacob but to help Jacob in the final leg of his journey. But Jacob again refuses and Esau returns south to Seir while Jacob turns west to Succoth (vv. 16-17).
At the end of verse 14, Jacob says that he’ll eventually “come to my lord in Seir.” But it appears that he never had any intention of doing so, as verse 17 indicates. What’s going on here?
Perhaps Jacob doesn’t trust Esau. Maybe he thinks that Esau’s charity wouldn’t last and conflict would eventually rise between them. But there could be a theological reason why Jacob doesn’t go to Seir with Esau. Jacob wants to go home (30:25) and the Lord told him to return home to the land of Canaan (31:3, 13; 32:9). Seir is not in Canaan. Jacob’s father is in Canaan. Maybe this is why Jacob turns toward Canaan instead of Seir. Either way, he says one thing but does another.
“Character Glitches” in Martin Luther
It shouldn’t surprise us that Jacob acts in a somewhat slippery way here. The reasons why people do things aren’t always clear to even the people doing them. Don’t we see “character glitches” in all of God’s servants in the Bible? There are disappointing inconsistencies that, given their allegiance to the Lord, shouldn’t be there.
This is true for all of God’s people, even our heroes. Martin Luther, for example, was not a model Christian in his health-impaired later years.[3] Biographer Roland Bainton says he became “an irascible old man, petulant, peevish, unrestrained, and at times positively course.” Luther refused to recognize Zwingli and the Swiss reformers as Christians. One contemporary of Luther’s said of him, “Since he has lost control of himself, he believes that the greatest sin and the most unfair act in the world is to criticise him. We have here a miserable creature who smashes heaven and earth because we have told him that he too, as a man, might err.”
Luther was a champion for the gospel and for God, but this kind of behavior shouldn’t mark those who serve Christ. Ironically, earlier in life Luther had counseled the Christians in Wittenberg to be patient with their enemies. While he was away, they were going around smashing Catholic altars, images, shrines, and stained-glass windows. The town leaders asked Luther to come back quickly and he did, telling the radicals who were trying to “push reforms down the throat of the community that they needed to ‘give people time.’ It took Luther three years of study to see what needed to be done. How could people be moved to welcome reforms in three months?” Luther said, “You are wrong to think that you get rid of an abuse by destroying the object which is misused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we prohibit wine and abolish women? Sun, moon, and stars have been worshipped. Shall we pluck them out of the sky? Your haste and violence reveal a lack of confidence in God.”
We need to remember that Jacob, or Luther, or ourselves, don’t drop out of the sky fully formed in the image of Christ. We don’t excuse deviousness or inconsistencies. We call things what they are. But we need to, as Luther said, “give people time,” not expecting people to be where we are when it’s taken us a lifetime to get there, and not to be shocked when sinners sin. As a church, we need to be a place where sinners are helped, not scolded.
Jacob teaches us that even people who wrestle with God and walk away with a limp and a blessing also walk away with a sin nature and an everyday need for sanctifying grace.
Home At Last
There’s a detail in the last few verses of this chapter I don’t want us to miss. In verse 18, it says that Jacob “came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan.” In his commentary on these chapters called God’s Rascal, Dale Davis says that the clause “in the land of Canaan” “ought to be in blinking neon lights.”[4] This detail means that God has fulfilled the promise he made to Jacob in 28:15.
It’s amazing how subtly God’s faithfulness appears in this text. We would walk right by it if we weren’t reading carefully. It’s hidden away in a little prepositional phrase, “in the land of Canaan.” Sometimes God’s faithfulness is big and obvious for all to see. Sometimes it’s quiet and unnoticed but clear to those who experience it.
When God made that promise to Jacob, it looked highly unlikely because Jacob was headed out of the land of Canaan and would face, as Davis says, “a scheming uncle and bickering wives and daily drudgery and threat of fraternal vengeance and some twenty years.”[5] But God’s word held firm “through many dangers, toils, and snares.” God’s amazing grace came to Jacob in the embrace of his brother Esau and in his safe arrival to his home in Canaan. God gave him more than he could’ve hoped or imagined.
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
This isn’t an accidental or incidental part of the Bible’s story. As Jesus’ disciples, we need to know whether our God is faithful to his people or not. This text, and thousands more, tell us that he is. This truth gives us hope when we hear Jesus say things like, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you?” (Jn. 14:2) We can hang on to these words because they come from the lips of One who speaks with complete candor and absolute reliability. We can rest all our weight on his promise: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (v. 3).
God did what he told Jacob he would do, and he’ll do what he tells us he’ll do. Jesus will come back for us and bring us safely to his house to live with him. This is why we sing, “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee, Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not, as Thou has been, Thou forever will be.”
A Beautiful and Mysterious Text
In this text, we’ve seen Jacob meet Esau and then leave Esau. We’ve been reminded of God’s unexpected and extravagant love.
This is a beautiful and mysterious text. It shows us how Jacob’s wrestling match with God prepared him to meet his brother. Courage has replaced cowardice, humility has replaced arrogance, and penitence prompts Jacob to give back the blessing that he’d stolen from Esau. Jacob has truly been reborn as Israel.
But we see that Esau has also changed. The would-be murderer receives his prodigal brother with over-the-top affection. He even invites Jacob to come live with him in Seir. Such an invitation after so many years of hatred makes this offer sound too good to be true. The full and free forgiveness that Esau gives his deceitful brother is a picture of God’s surprising love, as Jacob even seems to understand (v. 10). This is why Jesus uses the language of this scene when describing God’s extravagant welcome for anyone who realizes their need for him.
This text also shows us that Jacob’s new birth at Peniel didn’t obliterate his past or completely change his character. The new Israel still has features of the old Jacob. He doesn’t seem to entirely trust Esau’s acceptance of him. His old fears and suspicions still lurk in his heart. Even though he says he’ll join Esau in Seir, he never makes that journey. This reminds us of our reluctance to trust God entirely despite the extravagant displays of his love and faithfulness toward us, and we’re encouraged to keep journeying with God because he’s for us, not against us.
By the end of the chapter, we may think that the story of Jacob’s life has reached its conclusion: Israel is finally at home in the land promised to Abraham. But, as we’ll see next week, what looks like a great resolution proves to be the beginning of another crisis.
[1]Gavin Ortlund, Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t: The Beauty of Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), viii.
[2]Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 114-5.
[3]See Dale Ralph Davis, God’s Rascal: The Jacob Narrative in Genesis 25-35 (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2022), 104-5, for these accounts from Luther’s life.
[4]Ibid., 107.
[5]Ibid.