The Peace of Rachel and Leah

Advent 2

Great Women of the Bible

The Peace of Rachel and Leah

Genesis 29:16-18

Good morning and welcome to worship on this wonderful 2nd Sunday of Advent.

I want to thank those of you who were able to participate in the Shop with a Cop event yesterday. We are making plans to be a larger part of this event next year, but this year we received the call for help midweek this week. If you don’t know what the event was, Shop with a Cop is an event that takes place in Grand Prairie, Waxahachie, Irving, and Brownwood where foster children and at-risk youth are teamed up with an officer and a church member to shop and buy things they wouldn’t normally be able to buy. Sometimes it is toys, some of our group were excited to buy a water bottle, some snacks that they don’t usually get, or clothes… it was a fun event and a great opportunity to help these children have a positive interaction with law enforcement and church members.

Thank you to those who were able to participate! Thank you for being the Body of Christ and offering hope, love, and grace to those in need.

Those are the kinds of ministries I would love to see us do more and more. Not just during Advent and the Christmas season, but year round.

But today, it is the 2nd Sunday of Advent. We are in the holding pattern awaiting the arrival of our Lord and Savior.

Last week, we awaited our Lord as we considered the Hope of Sarah. Next week, you will have the opportunity to hear from Tim Trimble, a retired Methodist pastor that has been worshipping with us this year and I am so proud to have him as a part of First Methodist. I can’t wait to hear what he has to tell us about the Joy of Elizabeth.

Then, the week before, the Sunday before Christmas, we will be considering the Love of Mary.

But, today, we are thinking of the Peace of Rachel and Leah.

Turn with me to Genesis 29. The story of Rachel and Leah is a part of the story of the beginning of the people of Israel. They are the wives of Jacob and… as you can imagine, one man married to two sisters is just the start of a huge soap opera. But in the end, they find peace, and they share peace with us.

Let’s read just a short passage about them, and then we will dig into the story.

Genesis 29:16-18

Now Laban had two daughters. The older daughter was named Leah, and the younger one was Rachel. There was no sparkle in Leah’s eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Since Jacob was in love with Rachel, he told her father, “I’ll work for you for seven years if you’ll give me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife.” Genesis 29:16-18 (NLT)

[PRAYER]

To Understand the story of Rachel and Leah, we have to first understand the story of Jacob and Esau, and before them the story of Isaac and Rebecka. Which means, we start with Abraham and Sarah – Jacob’s Grandparents. Last week I talked about the Hope of Sarah, and the fact that even when she had given up hope, God had not… and Sarah brought forth a son. In Genesis 21, we see that they named the son Isaac – meaning “Laughter,” because as Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone will be able to laugh with me.”

Then, skipping through the story to Genesis 24, we find Abraham, now a widower, looking for a wife for his son Isaac. He sends a servant back to his own people out of the land of Canaan and to Mesopotamia – near modern day Iraq. When the servant arrives in an area called Paddan-aram, he stops by a well or a spring and prays that God would send a sign to help him find the bride for Isaac. What happens after that prayer, but “a beautiful young girl named Rebekah arrived with a water jug.” The servant of Abraham thanked God for the moment, and Rebekah invited him to stay with the family – the family of his master’s relatives, and he gave her gold earrings and gold bracelets

She ran home and told her brother Laban – Remember that name from our Scripture? We are about to hear more from him as he grows up, but young Laban ran to meet this servant of Abraham, he took the servant home to his and Rebekah’s father Bethuel, and had the servant tell the story of how God had led him to Rebekah to be the wife of Isaac. Everyone agrees, Isaac and Rebekah are to be married, including Rebekah.

So, beautiful Rebekah returns to Abraham and is married to Isaac. Later in life Isaac and Rebekah had twins – Esau and Jacob. Keeping with the theme of names from last week - Esau means hairy, and Jacob means grabber. They started fighting in the womb and didn’t stop until Jacob left home.

This is where it gets interesting. Esau gave up his birthright for a cup of soup, then Jacob stole his blessing by deceiving his father. That’s a whole other story and several other sermons full of deceit, hatred, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

But the point for today is that once Esau realized what Jacob had done, he vowed to kill his brother and Jacob fled for his life back to Paddan-aram – the home of his mother Rebekah.

In the middle of his journey, he stops to rest one night and has an encounter with God. All his life he has been the deceiver, grabbing whatever he could, then he encountered God and his life began to change.

How often does that happen to us? We do our own thing until everything falls apart. We mess everything up and start running. All we know is we are running from our past, but God has a different plan. As we are running from our past, God is guiding us to our future. And we don’t have a clue until we encounter God.

I guess my first question for you today is What are you running from? I think we all have things in our past that we are running from. What is yours?

But more than that, what are you running toward? What is God placing in your path to slow you down and give you direction? Where is God leading you?

Jacob didn’t know it, but he was running to God and to his destiny.

As Jacob is turning to God he continues his journey, knowing he can’t go home or his brother Esau will kill him. He finally stops to rest near a well, where shepherds have gathered, but the well is covered.

As he waits, he sees one of the shepherds and asks, “Do you know a man named Laban?” they say, “Oh, yes… he is doing well and very prosperous.”

“Look, there comes his daughter Rachel with his sheep.”

If this were a movie, this is where the orchestra would be cued and the beautiful, graceful, Rachel skips toward the well.

Everyone else was waiting for more shepherds to gather to move the stone off the well, but Jacob goes and removes the stone by himself and starts watering his uncle Laban’s sheep with Rachel. Then, Rachel runs to tell Laban about Jacob and it’s a family reunion of sorts.

Jacob stays and works with the family, then after a month or so, Laban says, “you can’t work for me for free, that’s not right. Name your wage.” And since it was love at first sight, Jacob says, “I’ll work for 7 years to marry your daughter Rachel.”

And the deal is done… except at the end of the 7 years and the wedding festivities, Jacob wakes up not next to Rachel the morning after the wedding, but instead he’s been tricked into marrying the older sister Leah.

The scriptures tell us of the striking beauty of Rachel, but only that Leah had “soft” eyes, or “dull” eyes, or “eyes with no sparkle”.

The language isn’t clear, but it’s kinda like when your trying to set a friend up with your girlfriends friend and he says, “what’s she look like?” and you say, “well, she’s got a great personality.” Right…

And what begins to develop is the story of the outward beauty of Rachel and the inward beauty of Leah.

So, Jacob is first married to the older sister with a great personality… He confronts his uncle about the deceit and is then given Rachel as well, he just has to finish out the week with Leah as is the marriage custom… and work another 7 years to earn the marriage to the 2nd daughter.

You would think Jacob would be a little upset… but I think God is doing a work in him, and Jacob kinda realizes that he had it coming… He had deceived his father Isaac and cheated his brother Esau, so it was only fitting that he knows what it’s like to be deceived and cheated.

Anyway, 14 years pass like it is nothing and Jacob begins to build his family. Through Leah, he has four sons all named based upon her relationship with God… but Rachel hasn’t had any children. This is where we begin to see the differences in Rachel and Leah… Rachel had the outer beauty, but she tried to rely on her own strength on her own power… she used her beauty to get what she wanted. But Leah was a Godly woman, a woman who trusted in God.

In chapter 30, we see Rachel telling Jacob to give her children. And Jacob says, “Am I God? You need to be praying to God, not me. I can’t do anything about this.”

So, Rachel pulls a Sarah and sends in her maid servant to give her children. Then, Rachel named the boys after her fight with her sister, and how she was better than her sister.

You get the point, even in the naming of their children, we see that Leah is God-centered and Rachel is self-centered.

Do you know anyone like that? They try to rely on their looks, their athleticism, their intellect to accomplish everything? They want to rely on themselves and themselves alone. Not trusting in others and not trusting in God? Everything that happens to them must be someone else’s fault, because they are too good to be responsible for their situation.

We all do, an I dare say, at times we are that person.

Anyway, this fight goes on, Leah and Rachel seeing who can give Jacob more sons… both their maids are given to be wives of Jacob and all together, Jacob has 10 sons. None of them had been birthed by Rachel. Then, once she had turned from being self-centered and finally began to turn her focus on Jehovah, she has a son and names him Joseph, meaning “Jehovah, may I have another son.”

Leah has lived a peace with God. Finally, Rachel is at peace with God. And as Jacob, Rachel, Leah, and all 11 sons prepare to leave and move back to the land of Jacob’s Father and Grandfather, Rachel is pregnant with her final son, Benjamin. And sad as it is in the story, Rachel gave birth as they were traveling and died in childbirth, but Benjamin survived.

As they continue their journey, Jacob receives word that Esau has assembled an army and is riding to meet him. Jacob thinks, surely Esau is coming to kill him, so he sends his servants ahead with the cattle and sheep, then his wives maids and their children, then his wives and children… all processing ahead of him, and he spends the night alone wrestling with God. The end of Genesis 32 tells the story of Jacob wrestling with God and his hip being injured and healed by and angel of God. His name is then changed from Jacob to Israel, and he leaves that place with a limp, and goes to see his brother where they make peace with one another and live happily ever after.

What does all this have to do with Christmas, and Advent?

Well, let’s start here… Here are the names of the children of Jacob, who became known as Israel:

Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin;

As well as one daughter, Dinah.

If you remember the story of the people of Israel, and the 12 Tribes of Israel, then you will notice that the names of the 12 son’s are the 12 tribes. Israel was never a nation, Israel was a family… it wasn’t about the politics, it was about the relationship… the relationship between one another and between them and God.

From these 12 sons comes a savior for the people of Israel. If you recall, Joseph was later sold into slavery by his older brothers, and the ended up in Egypt as the second in command under Pharoah. It was Joseph who again united the family and saved them during a massive drought. If it had not been for Joseph, the 12 Tribes of Israel, the 12 son’s of Israel would have starved to death. Joseph saved the people of Israel.

But that’s not the best part. Yes, Joseph – the son of the beautiful wife Rachel saved Israel…

But it was from the Tribe of Judah, the son of Leah that the Savior of the world would come.

Jesus was born from the Tribe of Judah – both Mary and Jesus’ earthly dad Joseph were from the tribe of Judah.

There is so much in this story of Rachel and Leah… but what I want us to remember today, is that they had no idea of the impact they were going to have on the world. Once they each made peace with God, they became servants of God’s peace… one brought forth a son who would bring peace to the people,

The other brought forth a son through whom true peace beyond understanding would be born.

The things we do today… what you do today has an eternal impact.

Those children you helped selfishly fight for toys on overcrowded isles will remember that you and an officer cared enough for them to take them shopping. They will remember your love offered to them.

When you share a little of your relationship with God with someone you meet has an eternal impact.

When you love, when you offer joy, when you share hope, and when you live at peace in this world in need you are making an eternal impact.

Why, because when we offer peace to the least of these, we offer peace to the Prince of Peace.

Let us pray.