The Shadow Man
Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Genesis 32:24 NASB
A man – Perhaps you’ve read Crossing.[1] If you haven’t, then you should. It’s a book about Jacob’s struggle for self-identity, and, of course, it’s in Scripture because it isn’t just about Jacob. It’s about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—and you and me. It’s about coming to the brook of separation or walking through the valley of the shadow of death or entering the temple of YHVH or seeing Yeshua after the resurrection. It’s about being undone! It’s about recognizing our own futile attempts to make something of ourselves without feeling the force of God’s hand upon us. It’s about years of denial, distraction, distance, deliberation, despair—and destiny. It’s about the man—a man—the one we encounter in the middle of our struggle who can’t be defeated but can’t win. The man who fears the coming of the light. The man who plays rough, breaks the rules, leaves us crippled. The man who never explains why he fights, where he comes from or who he is. That really doesn’t matter in this story. What matters is crossing the brook. That is all that matters. Leaving behind what we did to ourselves, what we made of ourselves, what others told us about ourselves—and crossing. Crossing to the place where we are in partnership with God, where we have a purpose that fits and where we can look at the world from God’s point-of-view.
Joe Steenkamp puts it like this:
In becoming conscious one is able to detach from subjective perceptions and see the truth or symbolic meaning in a situation. Detachment does not mean ceasing to care. It means stilling one’s fear-driven voices. One who has attained an inner posture of detachment has a sense of self so complete that external influences have no authority within his or her consciousness. Such clarity of mind and self is the essence of wisdom . . . and . . . We achieve wisdom both through life experiences and by acquiring the discriminating perceptual ability of detachment. . . . But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it. . . . If you hold back on emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid . . . of the pain . . . of the grief . . . of the vulnerability that loving entails.[2]
We think of detachment as emotionless neutrality, but that isn’t the case. Detachment is the ability to fully engage in life’s emotional path and not get stuck in the process. It is the ability to allow completed emotional experience to become the instructor of continued living. It is not stepping away. It is stepping into. As Steenkamp notes:
Empathy is the stimulant for healing; sympathy is its killer.[3]
I have argued that the story of Jabbok is about Jacob wrestling with himself in the depths of his own self-made identity. I fully believe that Jabbok is our place of struggle, the place where we must learn the difference between empathy and sympathy. We are not to feel badly for Jacob and those like him. We are to identify that we are Jacob. We are the ones fighting with “a man” who comes out of nowhere and pummels us until we collapse. We are trying to cross into God’s land, and we ourselves are the enemy that attempts to prevent the crossing. But we cannot win by defeating the man. We can only resolve this battle, not win it, by engaging the man until we emerge “complete” (Genesis 33:18 – see Today’s Word, May 1, 2016).
How many times have you truncated the process of emotional resolution by stepping away from the painful path? Did your divergence resolve the feelings or did it merely push them into a secret closet? Are you transparent, even to yourself, as God described the couple in the Garden, or have you lost empathy for the one who calls you back to the wrong side of the brook? Maybe we can summarize it all with this:
Who are you really fighting today?
Topical Index: detachment, empathy, Jabbok, Jacob, Genesis 32:24, Genesis 33:18, Crossing
[1] Crossing: The Struggle for Identity, available on skipmoen.com/products
[2] J. O. Steenkamp, SHIP, pp. 132-135.
[3] J. O. Steenkamp, SHIP, p. 131.
The gospel – even the Torah – makes no sense until Jabbok. In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian had to slog through the Slough Of Despond BEFORE he reached the Wicker Gate and got handed his instruction book. He didn’t even get a guide before he did! I was always quite perturbed about that Slough.
It does little good to try to sell the gospel or Torah to somebody who has not met the enemy yet. At best, it can be painted on as a veneer, which was what happened to me (and a good thing, too, for at least I always knew the truth, even though I did not truly come alive in it until after I fought my battle to a standstill and limped across my creek), but it does not really soak in. Nor is it any good to try to climb over the wall, either, or to try to pick that low-hanging fruit hanging over it. Nothing works until you slog through your slough and show up at the gate before it is too late – for you.
The track the world takes to what it calls success is only a fast track to despair, in that City of Destruction. Which is a good place to start! Halleluah!
P.S. Crossing is a great book. Thank you, Skip!
Pure gold…
Pure gold refined at the hearth of God. Gold refined by fire. How much light can I stand? How much light do I desire? This and all we ask ourselves and some venture still to desire. But what will be the answer; our hearts refined by fire.
This is the pearl of great price- great is the gift of life and the currency to purchase it-to wrestle until the breaking of dawn!
During my spiritual indoctrination we used these allegoric assumptions a lot, I found that in the end they tend to deminish the greatness of God, making followers dependent on the spiritual level of another person. This making the messenger’s presence needed to understand or communicate with God.
Although this is deemed the depth of Christ it also nullifies the independent quest to find a relationship with God. It does however strengthen the need of human interaction as a means to serve God…
Otherwise Skip I concur with the need for self reflection or scrutinization to grow to the full size of Christ, without this we will continue seeking out doctrines to fill the void in our lives… This is found with the calling of some of the prophets as well…
Trying hard to catch up. Been away, and busy with encouraging fellowships.
Rabbi Skobac and some others have good insights into this battle of Yaccov’s.
The sages said he was fighting with an angelic being, and that Yaccov won the wrestling.
How could he have won, when he limped afterwards? That was the winning point! Simply fabulous!
.And the man said: No longer will your name be spoken of as Jacob, but as Israel, for you have contended with Divine beings and with men, and you have won.” (Genesis 32:25-29) Tanakh
“If we are engaged in a spiritual conflict with someone, and we end up striking them – it shows that we have lost.
If we are disputing ideas with someone else and we resort to verbal violence – we have lost. The Maharal of Prague wrote that in religious discussions, if we try to cut off our opponent from expressing their view – it demonstrates the weakness of our own faith.” Rabbi Skobac
Shalom!
Thank you, Ester.