Means of Grace

"For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me." (Genesis 33:10)

As the oldest son of Isaac and Rebekah, Esau was the natural heir to Isaac and thus the heir to God's promise to make Abraham a great nation that would bless the entire world. (Gen. 12:1-3) All who blessed him would be blessed; all who cursed him would be cursed.

There was just one problem: Esau's little brother, Jacob, wanted the promise more than Esau did. One day, Esau came in from the field, famished. Jacob, knowing that Esau was impetuous, convinced him to trade his birthright for a bowl of stew. Esau  foolishly took the deal.

Esau usually gets a terrible rap for throwing away the blessing. In the New Testament, the author of Hebrews calls Esau "unholy" and uses his story as a metaphor for sinners who trade their eternal salvation for temporary pleasure. "For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears." (Heb. 12:17) 

But that wasn’t the end of Esau's story. In Genesis 33, after years spent in a far country land running from Esau, who wanted to kill him, Jacob obeyed God and returned to the land of Canaan. Jacob, who knew that he would run into Esau on his way home, was worried. The night before the reunion, Jacob had an encounter with an angel. He stayed up all night wrestling until the angel finally won the bout by touching Jacob's hip, leaving him with a permanent limp. Afterward, Jacob named the place Peniel (face of God), "for I have seen the face of God."

The next day, when Jacob met Esau, Esau's reaction was not at all what he expected. Esau ran to him, hugged him, kissed him, and wept over him. This scene is so moving that it probably inspired part of Jesus' Parable of the Prodigal Son. Unlike the Prodigal Son story, however, this story isn’t about a good character (the kindhearted father) and a bad character (the treacherous son). It's about two bad characters: Esau treated God's blessing as a means to an end, trading the promises for a bowl of stew. Jacob treated his brother as a means to an end, using a bowl of stew to take God's blessing away from Esau.

The resolution of this story is surprising. Jacob, who lied, cheated, and stole in pursuit of God, came to see the face of God in his brother: "For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me." (Gen. 33:10) Esau, who thought he had lost God's blessing to Jacob, received it back in a way through Jacob: "Please accept my blessing that is brought to you..." (Gen. 33:11) Neither brother was healed until he had become a means of grace to heal the other.