Weekly Devotion: What's Your Name?
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What’s your name?
My name is Dennis Lee Sanders. My first name I received from my Dad. My middle name, Lee, comes from a cousin of Dad who lived on the East Coast. My last name, Sanders, is the name of the family on my Dad’s side, the Sanders-Holmes family in Central Louisiana. Names can tell you a lot about a person. I’m fascinated by Icelandic last names because most people in that small country have a last name that ends in -son for a man and -dottir for a woman. Their last name actually means so and so’s son or daughter.
The biblical character of Jacob is, shall we say, interesting. He is the grandson or Abraham and Sarah and one of two sons of Isaac. If there was a “black sheep” of this family it would have to be Jacob. He was a schemer and a fraudster. Actually, that was his name. In this culture, your name was something that defined you. His name could mean “heel” because he was grabbing the heel of his older twin brother Esau. It could also mean “supplanter” or “betrayer.”
The thing is, all of these fit Jacob. He was always trying to trick and swindle people. He tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright. He tricked his father, Issac who was now old and blind by dressing up to look like Esau and giving this “Esau” the blessing. He tricked Uncle Laban and I’m guessing there were others he tricked as well. Jacob was someone that saw opportunities and was willing to take them by hook or by crook.
But sometimes your name catches up with you. In Genesis chapter 32, we see him heading back to see his brother, the same brother that he tricked so many years ago. He had no idea if his brother would welcome him with open arms and bury the hatchet, or just bury the hatchet… on Jacob. He waited the night before he was to meet Esau with his family. He could feel his past coming back to haunt him. Maybe out of a sense of nervousness, he sent his family ahead and then was alone.
Then the story gets weird. The text says he spent the night wrestling a man. It’s just odd that Jacob meets some guy and then decides to wrestle. But anyway, they wrestled throughout the night. As dawn appeared, Jacob thought he had the upper hand and was going to win. Then this unknown stranger decided to cheat. He placed his hand on Jacob’s thigh and tore the muscle. If the man thought this would cause Jacob to give up, he was wrong. Jacob still held on to the man even though he was now in unbelievable pain. The man asks Jacob to let him go. But Jacob, who realized that this was God said he would not let go until he was blessed.
This is when the man when God asks Jacob for his name. This was a big moment because it mean that Jacob had to come clean to God. He had to confess to God who he really was. He had to fess up that he wasn’t innocent, but that he was the heel, the usurper. God had forced him to face up to who he really was.
Then something amazing happens. The stranger says that Jacob now has a new name, Israel. He used to be the heel but was now called Israel. This name meant “God preserves,” or “God rules.” He was given a name that would be the name of a people, a nation. The guy that was a con man was redeemed and given a whole new name.
We are all named in life. We may not be called a heel, but we are named other things. People can look at us and give us names that are supposed to describe us. Poor people might be called “white trash” or “ghetto.” Others are called by what they have done: “racist” or “criminal.” Some are named “stupid” “lazy” or “fat.” We name them in order to peg who they are and act accordingly. You might have a name that people have called you that might be deserved or not. It might be a name that weighs us down, a name that we want to disavow, but can’t.
But the thing is, God has different names for us. God looks at all of us and gives us a name that doesn’t reflect what we have done but gives us a name that reflects how God sees us. God knew everything about Jacob. He could have called him something that reflected his sins, but instead, he is named something different. His name would be the name of a nation. The scoundrel is redeemed not by what he had done, but by what God has done.
Jacob was a heel, a trickster, a schemer, and a con man. But God knew him to be something else- a child of God.
-Dennis Sanders, Pastor