My sermon this Sunday focuses on the profound mystery of encountering God through conflict, vulnerability, and surrender. Jacob’s wrestling match at the ford of Jabbok is not merely a physical struggle, but a spiritual confrontation with his past, his identity, and his future. Alone in the dark, Jacob is stripped of all his defenses, his wealth, his schemes, his family, and is forced to face both God and himself.
The story is a metaphor for those moments when we are caught between fear and faith, between what we’ve done and who we’re called to become. In the wrestling, Jacob is both wounded and blessed, reminding us that divine encounters often leave a mark. But in that mark is also a promise: that God does not abandon us in the struggle, and the pain we carry may be part of our transformation.
his sermon invites us to consider the places where we, too, wrestle with God, through grief, uncertainty, guilt, or change, and to trust that God meets us not just in triumph but in tension.
