The Blessing We All Long For

Isaac Blessing Jacob, a 1635 painting by Matthias Stom.
(Wikipedia)

One of the saddest stories in the Hebrew Bible is that of Isaac's son Esau, who returns from a hunting trip eager to prepare his father’s favorite meal in celebration of the blessing he is about to receive as his oldest son. 

Tragically, he finds that Isaac, his aging and almost blind father, has been tricked into giving the coveted blessing to his younger brother Jacob. 

When Isaac realizes he was conned, he "trembles violently," knowing that the birthright blessing, once given, can never be revoked. 

Esau, beyond devastated, let’s out a loud, agonizing cry, weeps bitterly, and begs, “Oh bless me too, my father!”

Isaac laments, “ Your brother has deceived me, and has taken your blessing.”

Esau responds, “Isn’t that why he’s called Jacob (supplanter)? He’s taken me twice now, he took my birthright and now he’s taken my blessing. Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?”

The patriarchal blessing is a big deal, like a lifetime of Christmses and birthdays rolled into one. It involves inheriting property as well as authority and power. and is validation and celebration of the eldest son’s special place in the family line.

While that kind of blessing may not be what we long for today, the primal need for the blessing of our fathers and our mothers and from other significant people in our lives, remains a powerful one, the need for unconditional love and embrace. Bestselling authors Gary Smalley and John Trent, write about this in their book The Blessinge:

Children desperately need to know - and to hear in ways they understand and remember - that they're loved and valued by mom and dad.

Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child's life and it's like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.

I was fortunate having a father who was a genuinely good man, generous to a fault, and never intentionally hurtful in any way. In many ways I'm in awe of him, but he grew up in a home in which his father became a widower for the third time when his third wife, my father’s mother, died in childbirth when my dad was only 3 years old. His grief-stricken father, my grandfather Dan, was unable to say "I love you" or to hug or praise my father or the rest of his six older siblings.

My father did impart to me his heart for those who are hurting and his good example as a person of integrity and generosity, and I got from him much more than he had ever received from his grief stricken father, whom he described as “a man of sorrows.” 

What he wasn’t able to give me, given his family upbringing and the the Swiss-German culture he grew up in, was the ability to  embrace me and tell me he loved me, and spend much one-on-one father and son time with me when I was a child, even though I believe he did the best he knew. And we did form a closer bond later in life, and learned to hug and express appreciation for each other.

I wrote a journal letter to him some years ago that was something in the mode of Esau’s “Bless me too my father,” addressed "Dear Dad," in which I told him how much I loved him and how much I had always longed for his spoken words of love and affirmation. I followed this with a journal letter of response and blessing from him, addressed "Dear Harvey," with words I truly believed in my heart he would have responded with, if he could have, from the other side of the grave. This was a truly powerful part of the journaling exercise, the wished for letter that expressed what I was sure would have come from deep inside of this genuinely good man. 

I suspect most of us, at some level, understand the heart cry of Esau, “Bless me, too, my father, and my mother,” as a wish for filling whatever hole in the soul we may still find within us.

I’ll never forget an experience I had attending a week at the Wellspring Retreat Center (after my parents had both passed) sponsored by the Church of the Savior, a Washington, DC, based ministry founded by Gordon Cosby, an elder churchman, writer and fatherly figure I had always admired. I’ve long forgotten what he spoke about in the one session in which he was present, but I’ll never forget what happened to me after he spoke and was leaving the room. While turning around to make a few more comments he, for whatever reason, laid his hands on my shoulders as he stood next to my chair by the aisle, unintentionally imparting what felt like a blessing on me. I can still feel the warmth, the affirmation, the confirmation associated with that simple gesture.

In light of my own longing for this kind of grace I’ve collected words of blessings over the years from many sources, many of which I’ve shared with members of our family and others over the years:

One of these is the blessing an aged Jacob gives his son Joseph, along with those he gives his older brothers. Has Jacob's night long wrestling with God, his later act of repentance and reparation with his brother Esau, made him a changed man? 

Here's the blessing he imparts his next to youngest son:

"You are a fruitful vine,

a fruitful vine near a spring,

whose branches climb over a wall.

With bitterness archers attacked you;

But your bow remained steady

your arms remained limber,

because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob,

because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

because of your fathers’ God, who helps you,

because of the Almighty, who blesses you,

with the blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep that lies below,

blessings of the breast and womb.

Your father's blessings are greater

than the blessings of the ancient mountains,

than the bounty of the age-old hills.

Let all these rest on your head,

may continual blessing rest on your brow."

(Genesis 49:22-26)