Several years ago, Southwest Airlines began running a series of ads with the tagline, “Wanna get away?” The commercials would show someone in an embarrassing situation that drew attention to him or her – one of those times when you squirm and wish you could disappear. We’ve all been there. In the scheme of things, those things are usually no big deal, even though we wish we could just run away from them, never to see them again. But memories linger, don’t they? And, truth be told, there are some things that we wish to run away from because we know they are sins. In fact, we may even feel like running away from God because we’re so ashamed.

This Sunday’s Old Testament reading from Genesis 32 is the account of Jacob wrestling with the LORD. How i s that even possible? Yet a close reading makes clear that’s exactly what happened. Now listen to this exchange Jacob had with his opponent: The man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” (Genesis 32:26–28)

At first glance it seems as if Jacob is too powerful for the man who can’t get away from him, but that’s not the case since earlier the man quickly ended a match he could have stopped at any time by simply touching Jacob’s hip socket and wrenching the hip from its place. The key is that it is almost daybreak, and no one can see the face of God and live. God didn’t want Jacob to die. He did want to bless him, and so a new name, Israel, is given – a new name which indicates Jacob now is to have a new identity, a new way of looking at His relationship with God.

When Jesus came to this earth to be our Savior, sinful humans were able to see the face of God in Christ and live. Why? Because He came to put far away what needed to be put far away – the guilt and shame of sin – so we could be near to Him. The shame and embarrassment of sin were nailed to the cross, replace by a new identity as the forgiven, redeemed child of God who is now able to go through life with Him and, when the Lord so desires, even walk through the valley of the shadow of death with Him so that we might be with Him eternally in heaven. The old is gone, the new has come in Christ Jesus.