Jacob wrestles through the lonely night with a strange, strong Power that maims him; but instead of yielding, he clings and wrestles on, and will not let go wrestling until he has extorted a blessing. And when, in turn, he asks the stranger’s name, no name is given him; but Jacob guesses it is his God, and calls that night’s struggling-place, “God’s Face.” And he limps off in the morning lame in his thigh, but a crowned victor; and for his prowess wins a new name “Israel,” or “Prince with God.”
Here we have something very fine, — a meaning universal, and fresh as yesterday’s struggle with our own life’s difficulty. The teaching is that Wrestling is the condition of Blessing, — that the long, determined clinch brings coronation, and makes a new man of us, — maimed, perhaps, but still a nobler and stronger man than before the struggle.
A most aged doctrine? Yes: all the old religions ring with it. Most commonplace? True: the elements of heroism are very commonplace. Those short two-worded sentences from Paul (2 Cor. 6:4-10; 4:8, 9, 16-18), that sound like leaping bugle-calls from one in the front, are just it — this aged doctrine about struggle. Half the chapters of Epictetus are battle-music on this one theme. But because each one has to find out for himself how true the doctrine is, and has to find it out a great many times before the faith becomes so much a part of him as it is good to have it, let us draw it out and say it over once again.
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