Jacob is returning home after twenty years in Mesopotamia. He left in a hurry after stealing his brother Esau's birthright and his father Isaac's blessing. He fled from his father-in-law Laban, whom he has deceived. He arrives on the borders of his family's land, and sent messengers to Esau to announce his arrival. He hears that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men. Jacob is in great fear of his brother.

Daniel, with other members of the royal family and the nobility of Judah, was carried into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar, in 605 B.C., had risen to leading government posts on the basis of his intelligence and wisdom. In 586 B.C. Jerusalem was finally destroyed by the Babylonians, and Jeremiah had departed to Egypt with the remnant of the surviving leadership. His prophecies had been written down and somehow Daniel obtained a copy.

Jesus came into the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him as the Messiah. He came to his own special people, but they rejected him. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." (John 1:12,13)

This is known as the prayer of dereliction. Dereliction means being abandoned. It evokes the sense of a building that is uninhabited, long deserted by its former owners, fallen into disrepair. Jesus, the Son of God, experienced real abandonment by his Father. There is a tear in the heart of the Trinity that reflects the alienation in the universe between a holy God and a sinful human race.