Reflections on Genesis 32:22-31 and the Chilean miners

Last fall, the world stood glued to the television watching the Chilean miners ascend from their underground dwelling. For 69 days the world had been working to wrestle a blessing for them. Families set up camp outside the mine and named it Camp Hope.

Chilean government officials sent word worldwide to solicit help from all corners. Even here in Kansas City, Mo., an engineering firm flew their best minds from Afghanistan to Chile to work on Plan B, which would become the capsule lift used to hoist the miners from their quarters.

There was a sense that the world was struggling for this blessing of 33 human beings alive and well to rejoin their families, of father hugging son, wife hugging husband and president hugging citizen. The world struggled for this blessing. Engineers struggled to create plans to determine how to get the miners out of the ground 2,300 feet below.

Machinists struggled to build the mechanisms that would do the heavy lifting.
Politicians struggled to focus government resources and provide what was needed. Families struggled to maintain hope and encouragement. And last but not least, the miners struggled.

Of all those involved in this miraculous, blessed outcome, the miners wrestled the most. We can imagine the difficulty of living underground in a small space for such a long time. Yet we turn from these thoughts because we dare not imagine the stench, the boredom, the fear or the darkness in too much detail. Upon reaching the surface, one miner said, “We have seen God and we have seen Satan. God won.” I’m sure there were many days when it was uncertain whether God or Satan would win, hope or despair, human ingenuity or human limitation.

The miners wrestled a blessing. The world wrestled a blessing.

In Genesis 32:22-31, Jacob, one of the founders of the Judeo-Christian faith, is on his way back to his family. We don’t get the whole story in this Scripture. Our main character has been gone for quite a while. He left his brother Esau stewing about the stealing of his father’s blessing. Isaac, father of Jacob and Esau, was tricked by food, hair garments and familiar smells into giving Jacob the family blessing instead of Esau.
Jacob was to be the one to inherit his father’s lands, animals and family authority. Esau was mad. Jacob escaped to his mother’s family.

Living with Uncle Laban, Jacob worked hard, built up family and property of his own. But now it is time to return. Preparing to meet his brother, Jacob makes camp for the night. He takes his wives, maids, children and flocks across the river. They make camp there, but Jacob goes back to the other side.

The Scripture is short: “Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” Jacob wrestled in the dark—just like the miners.

Last fall my daughter turned 13, and it brought back memories of the summer before I turned 13. That summer, my family—my dad, mom, brother and myself—wrestled for ourselves a blessing.

Dad had been experiencing headaches for the previous six months. He got dizzy on a regular basis, and one afternoon he just couldn’t take it anymore. Mom took him to the hospital. After doing some tests in the ER, the doctor said he had a serious tumor on his hearing nerve and would need to go to a larger hospital for brain surgery.

Brain surgery sounds scary, and it was. As a child, I remember our family pulling together to provide support and hope for my dad. But more than that I remember my extended family and church community struggling with us. My grandparents, who were away on vacation, dropped what they were doing and drove all night to get home. The pastor of our church came to our house for prayers and support. Friends invited me to stay with them the day of my dad’s surgery. My brother went to his best friend’s house. Our family was mentioned every Sunday for weeks in the prayers of the people.

We—our whole community—were wrestling a blessing.

We got that blessing. The tumor was benign, not cancerous. The surgeons were skilled, and there was no damage to my dad’s nervous system. He recovered completely and remains an important member of our family today.

This story, like the story of Jacob wrestling in the desert, has become a story of hope and the example of God with us. We tell it regularly to each other, sometimes with a bit of humor, sometimes as an example of our values.

I suspect the story of the miners will become a similar story for the world, a story of wrestling a blessing, a story we will tell again and again as an example of reasons to keep hope alive.

How often do we wrestle in the dark? There is something about the darkness of night that brings to our minds and hearts all we are wrestling. Whether financial issues, health issues, problems with our children or problems with our parents, the anxiety of it all seems to hit in the middle of the night. We all have things we wrestle.

We are especially aware of this in the hospital, where we wrestle for ourselves, our family, our patients and each other. We wrestle for a blessing of renewed health. We wrestle for maintaining health. We wrestle for meaning. We wrestle for what is right and just. We wrestle for hope.

We wrestle hoping for a blessing, a blessing like the 33 rescued miners.

Jacob wrestled a blessing. In the middle of the dark, in the middle of the fight, Jacob refuses to give up. The one who wrestles blesses, “No longer shall you be called Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Who is this unknown wrestling partner? God? An angel? Jacob’s psyche? We don’t know. And it doesn’t matter so much knowing that Jacob wrestled as that he didn’t give up. He comes out knowing that he has seen God face to face and has survived to tell about it.

The miners have survived their wrestling match to tell about it. My family won their wrestling match. There are many stories of surviving hospital wrestling matches. A hospital blessing may be a complete cure, but it may also be as simple as allowing a few more months or weeks so that important work can get done—the work of making arrangements or of forgiveness. A hospital blessing may be the saving of a life through a transplant that is bittersweet because at the exact same time it is an ongoing struggle of grief and loss for a donor and their family. A hospital blessing may be a new baby. A hospital blessing may simply be a new understanding.

As people of faith we wrestle for blessings, whether they be big or small.

Yet even in Jacob’s winning he loses—his hip is put out of joint. In the depths of the struggle we are forever marked, forever changed. For Jacob, he limps. For the miners, the recovery will include counseling, physical renewal and challenging family relationships. For my family, we recall regularly the fragility of life and how we just about lost someone we loved.

No one who lives escapes the struggles of life. No one who goes through the struggles of life remains the same. We have an opportunity to wrestle a blessing from our circumstances whatever they may be.

As people of faith, we do this with God at our side. We trust that the God who gave Jacob a blessing will in fact give one to us, too. As we delve into the darkness around or within us, we pray for a blessing. We may need to struggle to find it—but bring it on because we are ready to wrestle for a blessing.