Over
the last few weeks we’ve been following the story of Jacob. Last week, we heard how he ran away to his
uncle’s house in Haran to escape his brother Esau’s anger. Jacob deceived their father into giving him something
that wasn’t meant for him - Esau’s blessing – and Esau wanted to kill him.
Jacob escapes into the desert and as he lays down to sleep, he has a
dream. In that dream, God makes him an
amazing promise. He says to Jacob, “I
will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the
earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to
the south. All peoples on Earth will be
blessed through you and your offspring.
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you
back to this land.” (Genesis 28:13b-15a)
But
how can God’s promise be fulfilled? To
have descendants, to have offspring, you need a wife and Jacob doesn’t have
one. Before he left Beersheba, Jacob’s
father gave him the instruction to take one of his Uncle Laban’s daughters for
a wife and so, with God’s promise and his father’s blessing, he continues his
journey to Haran. His mission is to find
a wife, but there seems to be some obstacles in the way of God’s promise being
fulfilled.
Jacob
himself is an obstacle. His faith is
questionable. After God makes that
amazing promise to him he says, “If God will be with me…and will
give me food.. then he will be my God.” (Genesis 28:20-22) Sounds like
he’s trying to do a deal with God after God has already told him in the dream
that he will always be with him.
Jacob’s
character and motives are questionable too.
I always imagine him as a sort of lovable rogue… a rascal. Maybe he’s a sort of “Del boy of the desert”, you’re never quite sure whether he’s sincere
or not and when he’s playing it straight.
For example, as he’s travelling to find his uncle, he comes across a well
in a field. He asks the shepherds who
are watering their flocks where they come from, “Haran” they reply. This is excellent news for Jacob. That’s ‘wife country’. So he asks the shepherds, “Do you know
Laban?” (Genesis 29:5). “Yes”, they
reply. That’s even better news! His mission to find a wife is going well. And then, who should arrive bringing her
father’s sheep, but Rachel, one of Laban’s daughters. We’re told, when he saw Rachel…and Laban’s
sheep…he watered the sheep first before even acknowledging her”. Only after that, did he then kiss Rachel and
weep aloud! Now this could have been an
act of kindness to the sheep, or to relieve Rachel’s workload, or to protect
his vested interest and future wealth.
(Read Genesis chapter 30 for more about his interest in sheep). There is a comical air to this too – a
humorous overtone – at the well he is clearly eyeing up Rachel and the sheep and
this would not have been missed by the original listeners of the story. We don’t know what Rachel’s reaction was, but
she does run home to tell her father. I
would have liked to have been part of that conversation… can you imagine what
it might have been like “Father, there’s some crazy cousin, called Jacob, at
the well…he’s after the sheep… and me”.
Despite
these obstacles, his questionable faith, his flawed character and his ‘far from
perfect’ motives, God chooses Jacob to fulfil his promise and his plan for the
world.
Jacob
is not the only obstacle though. The
people around Jacob and the prevailing cultural norms seem to be obstacles too. Jacob wants to marry Rachel. That’s his mission, that’s his route to having
descendants, but his uncle Laban has other ideas. He is better at wheeling and dealing than
Jacob is. The rascal Jacob has met his match
and the deceiver is deceived! He thinks
he’s marrying Rachel, but his uncle Laban tricks him. Instead, he ends up marrying her elder sister
Leah and then has to work for another seven years to pay the bride price for
Rachel! In Jacob’s time, the cultural
norms dictated that the eldest marries first and therefore Laban deceives Jacob
into marrying Leah. Brides wore veils
and it would have been difficult for Jacob to recognise who he was marrying, but,
to add insult to injury, Jacob does not even recognise Leah when he is intimate
with her. Poor Leah, it’s obvious she’s
not the most attractive of the sisters and she’s treated badly. I wonder how she’s feeling in all this.
The
whole episode seems very unsavoury. Jacob’s
marital arrangements are of course not a model for us to copy. Neither is his uncle’s behaviour a moral
example for us to follow. The treatment
of the women in the story does not sit comfortably with us. The story takes place in an alien culture
where women are treated as possessions. We
can get a sense of what it must have been like for the sisters if we think
about how women are treated in Afghanistan or when we hear about forced
marriages of young girls on the TV. And
yet, despite the brokenness of the situation, the deception, the cultural norms
of the treatment of women, and the absolutely wretched situation that poor Leah
finds herself in, God works through the obstacles. We’re told later on in chapter 29 that “when
the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.”
(Gen 29:31). Even though Rachel does
eventually have two sons, the promise of descendants is first fulfilled through
Leah who goes on to have six sons and a daughter. We also know that the descendants of all of
Jacob’s sons go on to populate the conquered land of Canaan. God’s promise to Jacob is fulfilled – God’s
plan comes to fruition; even when there are seemingly impossible obstacles, he
works for the good in all things.
What
then is God’s promise to us? In Paul’s
letter to the Romans, Paul reminds his readers and us that nothing will
separate us from God’s love through Christ Jesus. God promises us His love. Now that’s all very well, but obstacles seem
to get in the way; they seem to separate us from God.
Like
Jacob and Laban, it might be our own character that creates an obstacle or a
resistance to God. We are flawed
characters, just take a few seconds to consider what it is you like least about
yourself – painful isn't it. And maybe
like Jacob, especially when we’re desperate, we try to do deals with God, ‘if
this, then that..’. Or perhaps like Leah, the obstacles come from
a situation that’s beyond our control. There
will be times of suffering, times of loss, times of being unloved, times of
loss of freedom. There may be a loss of
a past that you preferred and situations in the present you’d rather not be
in. Or, maybe like Rachel, you live in
fear of the future, when the plan doesn’t quite seem to be coming together and
what you thought should happen, doesn’t.
And yet God works through our weaknesses and our sufferings, through our
brokenness and our limitations, to draw us to him through his Son.
What
does it mean to have the promise of the ‘love of God’? Romans 8, verse 32 perhaps best describes it,
“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all – how will he not
also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Our God’s love is self-sacrificial love. He gave His Son as a love offering on our
behalf, he will do anything, give anything, to ensure our spiritual
flourishing. His love for us in Christ
Jesus triumphs over every power on this earth and beyond. There is no trouble, no hardship, not even
persecution or danger – nothing in creation - there is no obstacle … not a
single thing, that can separate us from the love of God. And when we are too weak to pray, when the
obstacles seem insurmountable, when we have no words to bring to God, when he
seems far off and we doubt Him, He searches our hearts and the Spirit
intercedes for us with groans and sighs too deep for words. He is present and attentive, and by His Spirit,
he joins with our groans, prays for us and prays within us. He overcomes all obstacles and works for the
good through them, be reassured, we can have hope in that promise … because nothing
…. nothing…. nothing can separate us from His love.
Questions
1. Can you think of any situations where you have experienced ‘insurmountable
obstacles’ but some good seems to have
come out of the situation in the end?
2. When
have you experienced the love of God?
3. The Genesis passage is quite challenging. How do you deal with challenging texts in the
Bible?
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