Since we were little, we listened to the fairy tales read to us. Life may be difficult for the young beautiful maiden, but then one day, everything changes when somehow by chance, the handsome prince laid eyes on her, loves her and wins her heart. Then they got married and live happily ever after. For years, I believed, along with many others, in meeting the one true love to fill that emptiness in my heart, to make my life happy, to fix all that is broken in my life. In reading Genesis, that was what Jacob longs for with Rachel, and what Leah longs for with Jacob.
I am reading the Bible again from the beginning. I like doing that systematically. The amazing thing is that each time I read it, I see complete new things. Perhaps that's why the Bible is called "God's LIVING word". His word speaks to us in our different circumstances each time we read it. This time I was struck by the story of Jacob , Rachel and Leah. I think it's because women are more relationship oriented and in all the romantic movies, we look for "the one" to complete our lives. Oh, life would be so good if we meet "the one".
While I was reading through the drama of Jacob's love life, I accidentally heard a sermon of Tim Keller on this very passage! Boy, did it speak to me! Let me put his message into my own words.
Jacob was a man of inner vacuum, and seemed to yearn for blessing, success and approval in his life. After he had to leave home, he had an encounter with God, we all know about the vision of "Jacob's ladder". So this began his journey of walking with God. But just because he knew God, it didn't remedy his inner happiness immediately. However, through it all, God was at work in his life, and God used all his brokenness, mistakes, and disasters and worked it all as part of His grand plan.
People with an inner emptiness give themselves to a hope, a hope for one true love. They believe in their innermost being, that out there somewhere, there is that one person, who is going to make my life happy. He/She is going to fix it.
What is behind Jacob's hope?
God had chosen Jacob, but he grew up probably resentful of the fact that his father Isaac loved Esau more. So when his father Issac was old and blind, Jacob dressed as Esau and fooled his father into giving him the deathbed blessing of the firstborn. As a result, his brother Esau was furious and vowed to kill him. Jacob had to run for his life and everything was falling apart. At this point, he had no family, no inheritance, penniless, runs far away to see the relative of his mother. He probably felt sad that he will never see the only person who truly loved him, his mom. Then he finally met Laban and started to work for him. How is Jacob coping with the screw up, unhappiness, ruins of his life? He said to Laban, "I will work for you 7 years in return for your daughter Rachel. " Rachel is stunningly beautiful and sexually attractive (lovely in form) and Jacob is absolutely in love with her. 30-40 shekels is the normal price a suitor pays for the family of a bride. He is offering an enormous sum, which mean he is utterly out of his head with love. In today's wages, suppose a year's salary is $30k, Jacob is offering $210K for Rachel!!! He is not driving for a hard bargain at all. And because of his intense love, 7 years flew by. When the time comes, what Jacob said showed how desperate he was to lie with Rachel. It was utterly indiscreet and out of character. He was emotionally and sexually overwhelmed with longing for Rachel. He will do anything for her. Why is he like this? This is how he is dealing with the failure of his life. Everything in his life was falling apart, but Rachel, Oh, the most beautiful woman in the whole territory! Finally!! Jacob thought, "Something right in my life at last. Finally, there would be something about me that is worthwhile. My life would be worth something. This will fix my life. This will fill that hole.!" That's what he was doing.
Remember, in the ancient times, romantic love was seldom the basis for marriage. Modern people loaded an enormous amount of spiritual freight into finding the right person, into romance and into love. We don't want to admit how modern people are making up for the lack of inner spiritual fullness by looking for "the one". The self glorification that we need in our inner most being, we now look for in that love partner. We want to be rid of our faults, we want to be rid of our feeling of nothingness, we want to be justified that our existence hasn't been in vain. We want redemption. nothing less. How do we deal with uncertainty, sense of meaninglessness, pressure and fear? Lots of people turn to sex. It's not just Jacob back in ancient times. How are we going to get rid of the sense that our lives don't matter, that we are not very significant? A sense of nothingness? Love!! If I can find that one true love, then my life will be OK.
Laban's plot
Jacob is a deceiver, but in Laban, he met his match. The minute Jacob said I will work 7 years for Rachel, Laban's mind goes to work. "Here is a guy who will do anything and he is vulnerable. He is not negotiating for a good price. Here is a man who is clearly at my mercy. " What was Laban's answer? Notice he didn't say "YES". He just said "it's better for you to marry her than someone else. " That's not an yes, but Jacob was so desperate and wanted to hear an yes, so he heard Yes. Haha....Do you know anything about that? So now it comes to the wedding day, the bride is kept heavily veiled all day. First there was the procession from her home to the ceremony, and then the ceremony and the feast. Then after it all, the groom takes the bride to his tent. No electric lights. After hours and hours of drinking, Jacob says, "Ah....Rachel, finally." In the morning, he discovered it's Leah, the older sister. So he runs to Laban and ask, "what have you done? You deceived me, you knew what I was working for." Laban said, "it's customary for the older girl to marry before the younger," It's still fraud, cheating, illegal, and I am sure there were laws then to protect Jacob. But why did Jacob just meekly gave in to Laban? He was filled with fury at first, but why did he give in so fast? What Laban said was that "around here it's not the custom to have younger preferred before the older." Suddenly, a flaming spear went into Jacob's conscience. When he accused Laban of deceiving him, he remembered that "deceived" was the word that Isaac his father used to describe what Jacob did to him. Jacob realized that Laban is doing to me exactly what I did to my father. He is cut to the quick. He now knows what it's like to be lied to and be exploited. He is shattered.
Leah longs for Jacob
Now Leah is married to Jacob. Leah had weak eyes, which in Hebrew means that she is ugly, homely, and unattractive. She grew up in the shadows of a sister who is utterly stunning. That's why Laban had to unload her like this. The only way he was going to get Leah to marry anyone is to trick him into it or Laban was afraid that he would be stuck with Leah all his life. Leah is the unwanted one, the ugly duckling, rejected, ignored for years and years. What does Leah do to deal with the big hole in her heart? What does she do to handle the brokenness in her life from all those years of rejection? Every time she has a son, she uses a Hebrew name to express her longing for Jacob. "Maybe this time he won't just look through me. " "Now finally my husband will listen to me." "Now finally my husband will love me. " She is handling the hole in her heart the same way that Jacob handled the fact that Esau was preferred over him. Leah is looking for her one true love. She is saying, if this man would love me, then I'd be visible, important and worth something. The one person she is looking to for redemption is unfortunately in love with the woman whose shadow she's grown up in her entire life. Unbelievable. Fundamental human problems are the same.
"The one" does not satisfy
When Jacob wakes up in the morning, it's is Leah. In all of life, through every event, there will be a ground note of cosmic disappointment.... you are not going to lead a wise life until you know that. Jacob goes to bed with the one who is going to make his life OK, but in the morning, behold, it is Leah. Every time you get into a new relationship, project, job, pursuit.... you think this finally is going to make your life right. You go to bed with Rachel, in the morning, it will always be Leah. Most people in their hearts know that they want acutely something this world can never give them. The things in the world that offer to give it to you will never keep their promises. The longings that arise in us when we first fell in love will never satisfy. In the morning, it's always Leah. There is something you want in your heart that nothing in the world will satisfy. Your agony comes because you will not admit that the one true love you really want isn't him or her or any human being. It doesn't matter if you put family (like Leah) or sex (like Jacob) in place of God, you will in the end have absolutely nothing.
What's the hope? Where can this desire be fulfilled?
Leah thinks her husband is her savior. She is also looking for the Lord too. She is making "family" her psudo-savior while calling on the Lord. Finally she named the fourth child Judah, which means praise. There is no mention of her husband This time is different. Leah said, "This time I am going to praise the Lord. " She took the deepest passionate desire of her heart, away from her husband and put them on the Lord. Jacob and Laban have stolen from her life. But the minute she took her life back, there's liberation. What is the thing that you need to take your deepest adoration from and put it on the Lord? Once you have done that, then you can get your life back and you can handle anything. Why did she do that? Judah is the one through whom the king will come. God looks down at a beautiful woman and an ugly woman. He looks at a woman that nobody wanted, unloved and unlovely, and says "You are going to be the mother of Jesus." When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, He loved her. He is the true bridegroom!! He is the only true love!! If your partner is your all, any of his/her shortcoming becomes a major threat to you. Needless to say, human being cannot give you that. Leah is free from her idolatry and traditional family values. God is the true bridegroom.
The reason that Leah become the mother of Jesus is a picture of how God is going to save the world. That is how the gospel works. Gospel saves people who are not strong or beautiful, but people who will admit they are sinners and they are weak. Those are the people God uses to bring salvation to the world. What a god!! If you have been rejected by someone, Jesus understand, He is rejected by men, lonely, and misunderstood. Ultimately, God comes and says, "I will give you a relationship with me if you see what I've done for you. " Don't let marriage throw you. Whether you really want to get married, or you are unhappy in your marriage and want it to be better, don't put too much weight on it. Let these things pass in your life, then you can take your life back. When we believe in Jesus, His righteousness is imputed on us. You might look like Leah, but in Jesus Christ, you always look like Rachel.
Pastor Tim often jokes and quotes the great theologian Mick Jagger from Rolling Stones who sings, "I can't get no satisfaction". The longer I live, the more I agree with that statement. Really, nothing satisfies except for Jesus. Over and over again we see weak people, messed up people, who don't seek God or deserve God's grace. God had to come and intervene. The moral of the story is that God has come into your story, therefore, we can have hope that He is "the one true love" who can rescue us from our misery.
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