Tonight my brother Stanley is at the hospital in critical condition. I know this sounds obvious—but he has been my brother my whole life. I have made friends—some friends that I have much more in common with than either of my brothers, but none have always been friends. I am the youngest. Larry is five years older, and Stanley ten, so they usually weren’t my playmates or partners in crime.
Stanley sometimes took me bird watching with him along the Walla Walla River in Milton-Freewater, Oregon. On the dike we saw a Lewis woodpecker and a black-chinned hummingbird. Although our family camped together for couple weeks every year, the rest of time we went our own directions. We have not been close. But we got along better than many brothers in the Bible.
The stories of brothers in the Bible are often not happy ones; after all, the first murder was brother-on-brother. The story of Jacob and Esau is rocky too. Jacob cheats Esau out of Isaac’s blessing and tricks him into selling his birthright; then he flees to Laban’s land so Esau doesn’t kill him. After fourteen years, and a taste of some of his own medicine, Jacob heads home with his wives and herds.
But Jacob is terrified that Esau, still nursing a grudge, is going to kill him, so he sends gifts to Esau: whole herds of goats, sheep, camels, and cattle. The next day Jacob sees Esau coming with four hundred men. Jacob sends before him all his maids and his wives, Leah and Rachel, but then passes them and bows to the ground seven times before he comes to Esau. Then “Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.”
Esau tries to give back all the gifts Jacob had sent, but Jacob says, “No, please if now I have found favor in your sight, then take my present from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably.” Jacob’s gifts were not just a ploy to placate Esau’s anger. He sincerely sought to win the heart of his brother.
Proverbs 18:19 says, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city.” Jacob certainly laid siege to Esau’s heart. Perhaps even harder to give than all the herds, were those seven bows to the ground. With each bow, he surrendered his pride.
But really Esau may have given more. He gave up all his grievances—some of which were totally justified. Both valued their relationship enough to give up the most difficult things between brothers: pride and grievances. It is easy for grievances to pile up between brothers. And our pride can keep us from being the first to seek reconciliation.
So how much should we value a relationship with a brother? A lot it seems. As I think about Stanley, I am glad that over the years we have had a good relationship and that no grievances or pride has divided us. In the end, often all we have is our family. And like Jacob, we may see something like the face of God in the face of our brother—especially if our brother is on a hospital bed.
