In Korea, an eccentric singer named Cho Youngnam has a legion of fans due to his outstanding singing voice and abilities.  He is a multitalented entertainer who also writes and paints well.  He has a warm, familiar appearance that gives his audience a sense of cordiality and warmth.  Some time ago, Cho had attempted to walk the path of religion to become a pastor.  Two years ago, he published a book that chronicled his experiences with meeting Jesus, titled “Grabbing Jesus’ Satba.’  The book became a sensational hit.

 What is a Satba?  Satba is a thigh band.  It is a piece of clothing used by wrestlers in Korean wrestling called ‘Ssirum.’  Often colored in blue and red to distinguish the two participants, it was made out of cotton cloth.  Korean ssirum is similar to Japanese Sumo wrestling and Greco-Roman type of wrestling.  Korean ssirum is classified into two categories ‘Right ssirum’ and ‘Left ssirum.’  ‘Right ssirum’ is a match in which wrestlers wrap the Satba around their left thighs and grab each other’s Satba with their right hands while leaning and scrumming with their left shoulders. 

 ‘Left ssirum’ is conducted in the exact opposite manner.

Whether the match is a left or a right ssirum, the most important thing during a ssirum match is Satba.  If a wrestler loses the grasp on his opponent’s Satba, then he has almost no chance of winning the match.  Even before the match starts, we can often see the wrestlers engaging in a mini psychological match to grab firm hold on their opponents’ Satbas.  Only a firm grasp of the opponent’s Satba can lead to victory.

 Today’s scripture tells us that Jacob was wrestling with someone throughout the course of a night.  Who was this unexpected nocturnal wrestling opponent of Jacob?  The Hebrew Bible gives no clear identity of this man it merely refers to him as ‘ish,’ or a man.  Bible scholars offer four possible identities of this mysterious man.

 The first possible identity of this man is that he is a river god, who was charged with guarding the Jabbok River.  In order for Jacob to ford the river Jabbok, he had to defeat this guardian god of the river.  The second possible identity of this man is Esau, the elder brother of Jacob who lost the blessings of the first-born to Jacob and naturally the one who was grinding the ax of revenge against Jacob as a result.  The third possibility views the identity of this man in a more liberal psychological light, construing him to be a splintered part of Jacob his own guardian angel.  In this view, the mysterious wrestler is Jacob’s former ego his old self that deceived his father and brother to gain the rights of the first-born, the privilege that was afforded to the eldest son of the family.  The defeat of Jacob’s old ego signifies the birth of his new, transformed self.  The fourth possibility views the mysterious man as God’ angel, sent by Him to Jacob.  In this view, the spooky wrestler is God’s envoy, sent by God to test Jacob’s character.

 Among the four possible identities, the most plausible one is the fourth view, the one that views the man as God’s angel.  This view is supported by verse 30 of today’s scripture.  After defeating his mysterious opponent, Jacob calls the place of the struggle ‘Peniel.’  In Hebrew, ‘Peniel’ means ‘the Face of God,’ and came from the belief that Jacob himself faced God’s Face exactly at that location.  Jacob believed his wrestling match, this struggle, as struggle with God Himself.  We can say that his opponent, then, represents God.  Therefore, viewing this mysterious opponent of Jacob as God’s angel who was sent by God is probably the most accurate interpretation.

 Jacob wrestled and struggled with God’s envoy by grabbing his Satba at the Jabbok riverbank.  Knowing that losing the grasp of his opponent’s Satba meant defeat, he did not let go of the Satba until the end of the struggle.  Jacob’s grasp of God’s Satba can be interpreted as Jacob’s prayer to God or his last desperate reach to God.  The final victor of this struggle was Jacob.  Jacob’s victory, then, can be construed as his hard prayers moving God, to grant him blessings.  With tenacious faith, Jacob earned God’s blessing.  Through Jacob’s struggle with God, we can gain three spiritual lessons today.

 First of all, when do we need to grab God’s Satba?  We need to grab it when we face a dead end in our lives.  We need to grab it when our hopes die and our plans are laid to waste.  Look at Jacob.  He gained everything he desired, yet he faced the greatest peril of his life.  He was in a quandary or dilemma, stuck and unable to go in any direction.

 Who was Jacob?  In one word, he was a supplanter.  From the time he was in his mother’s womb, he was ultra competitive.  He had to gain everything he desired otherwise, he could not function.  He was born a younger sibling of a twin; yet, he managed to deceive his father, Issac, and his older brother, Esau, in supplanting and usurping the rights and blessings of the first-born from Esau.  When Esau learned of this deceit, he wanted to kill Jacob; Jacob had no choice but to run away at night, to Haran, the land where his maternal uncle, Laban, lived.

​The usurping and seizing habit of Jacob followed him to Haran.  By promising to tend the house of Laban for 14 years, he wed both of Laban’s daughters, Leah and Rachel.  He did not stop at that.  While Jacob lived in Laban’s house for 20 years, most of Laban’s wealth flowed into Jacob’s hands.  He usurped and had taken not only Laban’s two daughters, but most of his assets as well.  A conflict regarding wealth arose between two households, and it was no longer possible for both of them to reside under one roof.  While Laban went to shear his sheep, Jacob uplifted his family and servants, as well as all of Laban’s wealth, and fled back to his homeland of Canaan.

 But Esau had not forgotten about the past, and had eagerly waited for Jacob to return.  Upon hearing that Jacob was on his way back to Canaan, Esau led 400 troops to cut him off and attack him.  Although he succeeded in seizing everything he wanted, Jacob’s life was now in great peril.  He could not go back to Haran, the place that he had just escaped and ran away from.  He could not go forward into Canaan, from where Esau was approaching rapidly to kill him.

​Jacob was in a true dilemma a dire predicament with no clear solution or options.  He decided to resort to his last option.  Upon arriving at the Jabbok River, he sent his two wives, two maids, eleven children, and all his wealth to his older brother Esau across the river.  He probably did so out of calculation that Esau would not harm his sisters-in-laws or his nephews and nieces.  After exhausting all human hopes and solutions, he was left by himself at the riverbank of Jabbok.

When we are placed in a similar situation as Jacob, when all our hopes and options seemed to have been depleted, we need to grab God’s Satba!  We need to face God in our solitude!  We need to grab God’s Satba and engage in a spiritual struggle!  Then God will help us!

​ Then how do we grab God’s Satba?  We need to do so with all the strength we can muster.  Jacob faced God’s angel with every ounce of energy he can muster, with determination of a man not afraid to die.  God’s angel realized that Jacob could not be overtaken.  How can the angel defeat a man who was willing to fight to death?  So, not befitting an angel, the God’s envoy cheated.  To force Jacob away, the angel struck him on his hipbone.  The bone dislodged and broke, and Jacob ended up limping.  This shows how intense the struggle was.  It was probably more intense and competitive than a championship ssirum match in Korea.

 Jacob’s determination and tenacity showed during this struggle with the angel.  Despite the fact that his hipbone was broken, he kept on driving into the angel.  At the break of dawn, the angel pleaded with Jacob to let go of his Satba and to end this match.  The angel pleaded to be released, for it was time for the angel to return.  Yet, Jacob refused to let go.  He was insistent that unless the angel blessed him, he was not letting go!

 In the history of professional baseball, only four players made four errors in one inning.  Bob Brenly of San Francisco Giants was one of these four players.  He was a catcher, but played third base in one game.  In the fourth inning of that game, he made consecutive errors on four easy ground balls.  His teammates, the crowd, his wife, and he himself were probably in shock.  Brenly later confessed his feelings at that moment as such:  “All of those…after the fourth one, I never wanted to see the ball again.  I tried to hid behind the third base umpire a couple of times, but he kept moving.”

Then a truly amazing thing happened.  At bat, Brenly hit a solo home run and another hit that drove in a run.  To boot, in the bottom of 9^th inning, with two outs and his team trailing, he stepped up to the plate.  The count was full with three balls and two strikes, with his team one strike away from losing the game.  But Brenly did not give up.  Keeping his eye on the ball, he swung his bat.  It was another home run!  With this game winning, walk-off home run, the Giants won the game.  With one swing, he went from being a possible goat of the defeat to the hero of the victory.

 Did you grab God’s Satba?  Now that you have a hold of it, you might as well hang on for your dear life, until you are victorious.  Do not give up until your spiritual problems are solved!  Do not let go until God blesses you!  Only then will you win over God!  Only then will you move Him!

 Then what happens when one holds onto God’s Satba until the end?  Above all, Jacob’s name changed.  His spiritual status had been transformed.  To Jacob, who was determined to not let go until he received God’s blessing, the angel asked him what his name was.  ‘Jacob’ his name means ‘the heel-grabber.’  Determined to obtain the rights and privileges of the first-born, Jacob grabbed the heel of his older brother as early as in his mother’s womb.  The ruthless one that stopped at nothing to obtain what he wants, even if it meant deceiving and betraying his father, his brother, and his uncle that was Jacob.

 After his struggle with God, the tenacious and deceitful Jacob changes.  His name changes.  How did God’s angel reply to Jacob in verse 28?  “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”  Holding onto God’s Satba, he was victorious over God and men.  And that is why his name was changed to ‘Israel.’

​What does the name ‘Israel’ mean?  The one who strives with El in Hebrew, or God.  It means the one who enters into a special spiritual relation with God.  Struggling with God made him into a new being.  As you all know, Jacob’s new name ‘Israel’ becomes not a mere personal name but a name for a nation, to represent the entire people of Israel.

 What does the name change, from ‘Jacob’ to ‘Israel,’ represent?  The old Jacob, whose only interest was usurping and seizing the objects of his desire, had been reborn as Israel.  The radical transformation of Jacob after this epic struggle is well illustrated in chapter 33 of Genesis.  Approaching Esau, who had led 400 troops to kill him, Jacob bows humbly seven times.  This was not the image of the deceitful, avaricious and selfish usurper of his brother’s rights and blessings.  It was not Jacob any more!  It was the one who struggles with God and men spiritually it was Israel, the humble, gentle being.

As Jacob changed, Esau changed as well.  Esau, who had been consumed by conflagration of revenge and ill will, changed upon seeing Jacob bow seven times.  Genesis 33: 4 states that with open arms, Esau embraced Jacob’s neck, kissed him, and cries with him.  In Genesis 33: 10 states that Jacob, upon experiencing the completely unexpected reconciliation with Esau, proclaims the following.  “I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God.” 

When he grabbed God’s Satba and moved His heart, Jacob’s tangled interpersonal relations solved easily.  We call such phenomenon, ‘through God, then through man and through all objects.’  If we get it straight with God, then we can easily get straight with all others and all things around us.

​The selfish Jacob, who only knew to look after himself, transformed into the new being Israel at the ford of Jabbok River.  Actually, his previous tenacity and deceitfulness allowed him to obtain everything that he desired.  On the outside, he looked so successful; yet, on the inside, he was an utter failure.  Above all, he had many enemies, since his gains and successes have come on the backs of many he betrayed and stabbed.  Then one day, unconsciously to him, Jacob arrived at a dead end.  His life faced its greatest peril, the moment where he could have lost everything he had worked hard to gain even including his life.

 It was at this moment that Jacob grabbed God’s Satba and struggled with Him.  Despite sustaining injuries to his hip, he did not let go.  God ultimately gave way to Jacob’s steely determination.  God blessed Jacob with a new name, ‘Israel.’  When he struggled and defeated God, all his problems untangled themselves and he received the glory of being the ancestor of the people of Israel.

 Grab onto God’s Satba!  Struggle with Him!  And defeat Him!  Your status and character will change for the better!  You will be the proud owners of newfound blessings! 

 Amen.