Jacob’s blessing

In my sleep last night, I thought about why Jacob/Israel crossed his hands and granted greater blessing to Joseph’s youngest son. Joseph was not in favor of his father’s ways. In Jewish culture, the eldest son gets twice the inheritance of the younger son. For some time, I thought that Jacob did this in remembrance of his own actions earlier in his life, when he deceived his father (disguising as his elder brother Esau) and stole Esau’s blessing. This morning, I saw a picture of the cross in the crossed-hands of Jacob, a sort of undoing of the rules and customs of men. Jacob undid the rules of the Jewish culture, by using cunning ways to take the eldest son’s blessing. Once more, at the evening of his life, he is still cunning by crossing his hands and blessing Joseph’s youngest son with the eldest son’s blessing. At the cross, Jesus gave us a blessing that we did not deserve, the salvation of our souls. The Jewish law called for the sacrifice of animals, to atone for sin. God stepped into His own law and fulfilled it in a glorious yet cunning way as well! The cross was foolishness to the religious leaders, no one expected salvation to come to the world by the mean of Jesus hanging on the tree. So you see, God Himself became cunning, in the image of Jacob, to give us this gift of salvation! Jesus disguised Himself as a simple man, nothing about Him pointed to a King. His disguise was needed, for the perfect plan of God to be fulfilled on the Cross. Since the gift of salvation is offered to us freely; we don’t have to deceive, lie, cheat or labor to receive it, it is available to whosoever will want it. If you hear his voice today, please to not harden your heart, Jesus is calling you.