Genesis 35:1-29; Matthew 10: 1-8; Revelation 4:2-6a
March 20, 2022
- Jacob and his 12 sons move his life into the promise of God
I need to tell you right off the bat that this sermon title really does not work for this sermon. This was my planning a good while ago, and I thought I was going to go in a different direction. Originally, I was going to jump on the 12 sons who become the 12 tribes. Here in Genesis 35 we have the first full list of Jacob’s sons following the birth of Benjamin, and that is still very relevant, and I will come back to that shortly, but I am not really going to make them the focus as I had thought I would. And yes, I liked the title, too, because it also showed that while I am still a pup in the larger time scheme of things, I am old enough to remember Lee Marvin, Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson, and Ernest Borgnine. That was a different dozen than the 12 sons of Jacob, however, and much less important than these today as a group.
I need you to keep walking with me today in our journey down to the cross in this time of Lent through the stories of God’s people in the book of Genesis. We have travelled with Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah and Isaac, and now the family of Jacob. Here the rubber meets the road; here is where the stage gets set; here we finally see the plan starting to unfold before us. However, nothing gets any easier.
Honestly, if you had asked me before, I could not have even told you what chapter 35 of Genesis was about. It is not all that memorable except for this first listing of the 12 sons of Jacob, but that is also completely wrong. I love this chapter! It is a marvelous chapter because here we see something powerful and real that we can genuinely relate to. And as I said, this is also where we see where God is pointing us.
When a door is closed, what do we expect to open? If you said your pocket to pull the key out, that is probably a more realistic picture, but that is not the way we have learned that expression as people of faith. When a door is closed, we expect a window to be opened. Of course, this is a strange thing to say. Are we really supposed to make a habit of going through windows? I don’t recall going through maybe a couple of windows in my entire life, and that was always tricky business given my size and flimsy window construction. Maybe the expression is referring to those full-sized windows that reach the floor. Anyway, I am going to run with the proverb a bit. When we find a door close in life, we are supposed to also see a window opening. God is providing help, even if it is unexpected. After all, I cannot imagine any of us would chose the window over the door. The idea, though, is that when we suffer loss, there is also supposed to be a place of gain. When something is taken, something else is supposed to be given.
Now, to be honest, this can be a very dangerous idea. One way of taking this is that God somehow tears us down so that we can be built back up. Stonewall Jackson, when he was being a good Presbyterian up in Lexington, VA, a few years before the Civil War, suffered the loss of his first wife and child at the same time. She died giving birth to the baby who was stillborn – a truly horrible thing to happen. Unimaginable but more common in those days. What is also horrible is his response that God took them away from him because Jackson loved them too much. That is NOT where we need to go in this image. I hate that people have thought through the centuries that somehow God hurts us see how much we can take or to make us come back to a better faith or to be better people or to teach us something. That is malarkey. I reject that notion. If anyone wants to really explain how God loves us and steals our loved ones out of jealousy, please have at it. Seriously, some in our congregation are deeply wrestling in this very moment with the severe emotional weight of their troubles and sufferings – enduring loss that I cannot begin to imagine. God is not trying to break us. That is not love. Life is hard enough as it is. We face bad enough loss already. This world is constantly taking from us, but God is the one who also provides. Case in point, Jacob.
Every paragraph in this chapter is an experience of loss, regular, ordinary losses like we face all the time and have even more through the last couple of years and continue to face. Too often it seems like when we might be moving forward something snags us, but God is in the midst of that, too. The author here wants us to see that God never abandons Jacob or his family.
First, Jacob has all of his family give up their former gods. This was an issue with Rachel when they left her home. Time to give all the old familiar, comfortable gods up, and they get buried.
Second, Rebekah’s nurse dies, and she must have been pretty important to Rebekah who is Jacob’s mother because the author even bothers to mention her. She is a named woman, and that does not happen often in the Bible, especially for small characters, so that family took a big loss with the death of Deborah.
Third, Jacob loses his name. You must stop and just appreciate that. He loses the name he has gone by for all of this life. I don’t know if family still call him Jacob, but when God says, “Your name is now Israel,” I’m guessing that is what he needs to be called by everyone.
Fourth (and this is a hard one), Jacob loses his favorite wife. Rachel dies in childbirth, and she was the whole reason he got into that bizarre work relationship with her father. He worked 14 years just to have her as his wife. She was his light and joy, and now she was dead.
Fifth, Jacob’s eldest son Reuben has relations with one of his concubines, the mother of some of his brothers. This was a bold act of defiance. Reuben was showing his father that he was dead to him. This is similar to the younger son in the Prodigal Son story asking for all of his inheritance up front. This is a huge insult to the father to be treated as if he were dead.
Lastly, Jacob’s father dies. Jacob and Isaac never had the closest of relationship, but there was love there, and it was his father who did give him the blessing. He honored his part in all of this, and Jacob lost him.
Every paragraph has a loss, a door closing, a hurt, a grief.
And every paragraph also has a gain.
First, the family is now freed to worship and follow the only actual living God.
Second, while traveling through that area with enemies everywhere, God gave them safe passage and peace.
Third, the name that Jacob is given will be a name that stays with the people for all time. Israel represents the very people in their struggle with God. Basically, God is naming all of them after Jacob as Israel.
Fourth, Jacob did receive a dear and precious son from his favorite wife. His two favorites are both the sons of Rachel – Joseph and Benjamin. Benjamin is most dear to his father.
Fifth, Jacob does not even dignify his son’s actions but the text shifts to entire set of sons and names them. He has 12 sons and they will be the people of Israel. They will all become the tribes and the entire people. The future of the people of God is named right there.
Sixth (and this is precious to me), you notice who helped Jacob bury dad, or you notice who Jacob helped. Esau and Jacob past being enemies, past being at odds, past the hate and resentment. They were brothers in all that that means. They both loved their father and honored him in that shared burial. What a beautiful statement at the conclusion of their relationship.
Right there in the losses there were also gains, blessings in the hurt and pain. I’m not trying to say it is fair or even or that one balances the other. It is not about replacing the loss with a gain. What I am saying is that life in God has an inherently optimistic view. This is so critical and important to me, and I suspect it might be for you, too. If there is no hope, no future, no coming good, then we are a people to be most pitied as the Apostle Paul said. Here is God in this beautiful, subtle, but profound way showing us how life works in God’s grace.
That brings us to the sons that I promised to revisit. As I mentioned, here in the midst of real life, Jacob and his family had ups and downs. He was crushed by the death of his wife and no doubt saddened by the loss of his father, but he did have his 12 sons who would become the 12 tribes of Israel. What I want you to see is just how big a picture God is painting here for all the people of God. In Genesis and through the Old Testament we have the tribes. Then, Jesus calls his 12 disciples and sends them out to do his ministry. It is no accident that Jesus names 12 – the same number as the sons. The disciples reflect the tribes and the wholeness of God’s people, but the numbers 3 and 4 are both special in scripture. Three is a number that represents God and the divine presence, and four is a number of universality. Add the numbers and you have seven which shows up in the Bible; multiply three and four and you have twelve or a powerful statement of God’s presence in the world.
Well, let’s take it even further. Bring the 12 from the Old Testament and the 12 from the New Testament and you have 24 which happens to be the number of thrones around God in heaven. This is the complete picture of God’s plan to unite all into one people. We will all behold the glory of God as words can never truly describe. We will all be in the beauty and grace and goodness and love of our God that this life of struggle and pain and loss has prepared us to receive.
Everything we face today is the prelude to that glory. Glimpses of that day surround us every day. Where the door is shut, God is providing the window if we will see it. God’s goodness is always with us and all of God’s children, especially those whom we need to love. To God be the glory. Amen.