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It is not uncommon to see conflict in our world, persons or factions or nations in struggle against one another. Principals in conflict usually believe they have good reason for the hostility they show, and ordinarily it takes a bit of time for such hostility to develop.

This means that the relationship between Esau and Jacob was indeed a most exceptional one. Twins, born of the same mother at the same time, they apparently despised or detested each other even before they were born.

Isaac and Rebekah had been married twenty years, and there had been no children. Rebekah was now about forty, and inside her body strange things were going on. These were not the normal movements of developing life, but were instead the pummelings of violent conflict. Surely, among pregnancies, there had never been one so difficult as this.

It was out of deep distress that Rebekah said, "If it is to be this way, why do I live?" (Genesis 25:22). "So she went to inquire of the Lord," and the Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided."

Difficult as her situation must have been, Rebekah did not seek an abortion; she saw it through, and all the while her womb was a battleground. The delivery was about as unusual as the pregnancy: First born was Esau, Jacob following, his hand clutching Esau's heel.

Well, for nearly 4,000 years, the entire world has had occasion again and again to ponder the strange and critical importance of God's word to Rebekah: "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided."

The conflict fully felt in a mother's body continues to our very day, and over long centuries has followed a strangely convoluted course that has profoundly affected, and still affects, all of humanity.

Actually, the seeds of conflict had been sown one generation earlier, and the fruits of it have proved bitter over all this time. It will be useful, I think, if we may look at this and try to trace its devious trail across the centuries.

First, there was the Isaac-Ishmael thing. It came about in this way: Abraham and Sarah had no sons, and having a son was very important in that culture at that time. So, in keeping with the custom, Sarah gave to Abraham her servant-woman, Hagar, as a kind of second wife, and by her he fathered a son. They named him Ishmael.

Then later, when Abraham and Sarah were quite along in years, Sarah herself bore a child, a boy, and they named him Isaac.

On the day that Isaac was weaned, his father gave a big feast. During the festivities, Sarah observed Hagar's son Ishmael mocking and jeering. So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son." And this the old man did.

He gave Hagar some bread and a bottle of water and sent her away with her boy. The two of them went south into the wilderness of Beersheba, and eventually from there on down into the Negev. And there Ishmael grew up.

From the Jewish point of view, as recorded in the Bible, Ishmael was a "wild man, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him." He married an Egyptian woman, and became the progenitor of twelve princes, all mentioned in the Bible, and all bitter enemies of Abraham's other son Isaac and his progeny.

Here, of course, we have the beginnings of the Arab peoples, descendants of Ishmael; and the Jewish people sprang from Isaac and his son Jacob.

Second, there was the Jacob-Esau thing. Isaac and Rebekah had twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first, and hence, being the older, was the heir and head of the family. By a trick, though, Jacob cheated Esau out of his birthright and got the family inheritance for himself. When Esau realized what had happened, as we read in the Bible, he "... cried with a great and exceedingly bitter cry." And it is written: "Esau hated Jacob, and said, 'I will kill my brother.' "

Father Isaac, however, intervened and said to son Jacob: "Go to Laban, in Haran, and tarry with him a few days, until your brother's fury is turned away." And Jacob went.

But Esau's anger never turned away, never, and the few days turned out to be twenty years. That anger carried forward into succeeding generations, and continues to burn yet in our time.

Well, Jacob married two of Laban's daughters, and then stole his cattle and his gods and left. (Incidentally, Laban pursued him and overtook him at Mizpah. There at Mizpah, Jacob worked out a deal with Laban, paid him off to save his own neck, and said, as the two men parted, "The Lord watch between me and thee while we are absent one from another." Those are the words of the Mizpah Benediction, sometimes used at the close of worship services, and I have long thought it somewhat inappropriate. Those two men at Mizpah knew they could not trust one another with their backs turned, and so they implored the Lord to keep watch between them!)

Anyway, when he had settled matters with Laban, Jacob turned his attention to Esau, sending messengers asking for a meeting with his twin brother. And Esau met him -- with an army of 400 armed men. The record states that Jacob was "greatly afraid and distressed," and, of course, he had ample reason for being so.

He managed, however, to buy off Esau with large gifts of livestock, and Esau took the whole lot of it and went south into Mount Seir, which was Edom. Later in the Bible, dealing with the alignment of nations, it is said that "Edom is Esau."

Here in this wilderness southland, Esau joined forces with the descendants of his half-uncle Ishmael; and so the second undying grudge was added to the first, and the fires of conflict were fed with added fuel.

Now, Jacob's other name is Israel. So, between his descendants, the Israelites, and the descendants of the Ishmael-Esau coalition, the hot fires of bitterness, hatred, and resentment have never ceased to smoulder and have often flashed into all-consuming flame.

Moreover, in subsequent developments, those fires were fed in some rather remarkable ways.

There was, for instance, the episode of Joseph in Egypt. Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, this man Israel. One day his brothers sold him to some traveling traders, sold him into slavery. And who were those traders? Ishmaelites, that's who. They took Joseph into Egypt and resold him into slavery there.

A little while after, there was famine in the land of Canaan, and Joseph's brothers went into Egypt in search of food. Joseph befriended them, and they remained there -- until, after time passed and a new king came to power, they themselves became slaves. For about four centuries, they were in slavery there, and all this only widened the gulf that was wide already.

Yet another episode was that of Moses and Edom. It was at the time of the exodus, when Moses was trying to lead the Israelites from their captivity into Canaan. They had crossed the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula and were at the borders of the last remaining country they must cross before entering their "promised land." And what country was that? Edom.

Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom, requesting permission to pass through. The answer, prompt and decisive, came back, and the word was: "You shall not pass!"

And pass they did not. The descendants of Ishmael and Esau had stopped the Israelites at their border. So Moses and his people turned away into the wilderness and for forty years wandered there, until at length they managed to go around Edom and enter Canaan by another way. Thus was the ancient animosity renewed and deepened again.

Then later, much later, after the coming of Christ, after the Jewish dispersion by the Romans in A.D. 70, and well into the Christian era, there came a world-shaking change that united the Arab-Ishmaelite-Esau- Edomite-Egyptian world against the Israelites as it had never been united before.

This was the coming into the world of a new religion, Islam, the Muslim faith, Mohammedism. The new faith was almost immediately embraced by virtually all the Arab peoples, and in less than one short century, the Arab world became almost totally Islamic.

Israel and Judaism had always considered Ishmael and his descendants as second-class people; but Islam honored Ishmael as Allah's chosen and as the ancestral father of all Arab peoples. And so the gulf widened again. The ancient ethnic conflict was now greatly intensified by a religious conflict superimposed right on top of it.

In Mohammed, the offspring of Ishmael and Esau had now found a champion around whose banners they could zealously unite; and unite they did. They and the Israelites alike revered a common ancestor, Abraham, but since his time, about 2,600 years of troubled waters had flown under the bridge.

And this, my friend, is essentially where the issue stands today. It is sometimes said that time heals all wounds, but 4,000 years of it have not healed this one.

The issue is most focused on a small rock-strewn segment of earth's landscape just east of the Mediterranean Sea. There the people of Isaac/Jacob and Ishmael/Esau still struggle for possession of the land both choose to call home.

A small sliver of the geography of this planet, it is usually known as the Holy Land. In the biblical book of Genesis, we are told that God said to Abraham, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1). Well, this is that land, and it is now about 4,000 years since Abraham moved in to claim it.

Three generations later, there was famine, and Abraham and Sarah's offspring fled into Egypt for survival, and there they became slaves, only to return eventually.

After their return, they had difficulty holding the land, and centuries of struggle followed. They were led by the judges and then by the kings, and occasionally the voices of the prophets were heard. Sometimes they were winners and sometimes losers.

And they had trouble among themselves; at length, their little kingdom was divided into two smaller ones, and they were often at war with one another. At length, the northern kingdom was overthrown by Assyria, and then in 587 B.C. the southern kingdom fell before the armies of Babylonia. Most of the people were then taken away into a Babylonian exile, and the land was left in desolation. Altogether, they had held it for about 800 years.

Two generations later, after Babylonia had been overthrown by Persia, the Jewish people were permitted to return to Jerusalem and to reestablish their nation there. Then for another 500 or 600 years they maintained a tenuous foothold among the mountains and valleys of Judea.

Then in the West, Rome came to power, and the land fell to Roman conquest. The people were allowed to remain there, but the Roman armies of occupation moved in, a Roman governor was installed in Jerusalem, and this is the way it was when Christ came.

The people of Israel, the Jews, were never content to be ruled by Rome -- or for that matter, by anyone else. They were, therefore, in almost constant rebellion. Then in the year 70 A.D., the Romans moved to end forever, as they thought, the Jewish troubles at Jerusalem. A Roman general named Titus marched in with a huge army, the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem, the city was laid waste, and the Jewish people exiled to wander about the world and find haven and home wherever they might.

Afterward, the land was variously controlled, but generally occupied by the descendants of Ishmael and Esau. Largely closed off to the rest of the world, the area was rather a place of mystery for 1847 years. Then in 1917, during World War I, the land came under control of the British -- and the rest is modern history.

And this history is the story of a conflict felt first in a mother's womb thousands of years ago and felt now in every corner of the world. It seems that until now it has been a chasm too deep for bridging, a gulf too wide for crossing.

It appears, strangely, that the oldest animosities are the last to die, and no other on earth is as old as this one. How it may be resolved is one of the most perplexing questions of our perplexing age.

One hopes that we who call ourselves Christian may have something helpful to offer. In this conflict, the two sides worship gods of different names and, in some respects, of different characters, but neither makes room anywhere for reconciling, peacemaking Christ.

The apostle Paul insists that "he is our peace," one who breaks down "dividing walls" (Ephesians 2:14). He insists that God, in Christ, is "reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

It appears that in our world there is a great deal of reconciling yet to be done, and certainly this Near Eastern point of tension is one of the most urgent. Oh, that we of the Christian faith might serve as ushers to escort the redeeming Christ to his rightful place up front and center, where all eyes may see and be moved by the sight. Then, perhaps what long ago went awry, starting with the sons of Sarah and Hagar and Rebekah, might yet be set right by the Son of Mary.