"Now we're talking....." [the Joker to Harvey Dent]

Earlier, my local Pastor started a new theme of "God is love" as opposed to my initial guess of "Christ has risen" would be the theme surrounding the weeks leading up to Easter.  God is love does emphasize God's humility rather than power in the Easter narrative so it is nonetheless a wise choice now that I've had some more time to reflect and reminiscence on the meaning of Easter.

Recently, due to some conflicts, I read the following article: http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesussayshate.php  Despite a personal disdain I have for some of the other parts of Genesis 29 because of a friend I met during my years before seminary once made a joke about some of the contents of this chapter, it is a good passage to parallel some of his main points this morning in terms of how we ought to love others as a result of our love for God.

At face value, it may often be perceived exactly how it is directly quoted in the article or even if translated as "not loved", which is that Jacob despised or did not love Leah.  I feel the key thing to note is that this narrative, assuming it is a true story (seeing it is in the same book as the creation and garden of Eden stories which people have often brought into question their factual/historical accuracy) is that Moses and God are not necessarily trying to say Jacob completely despised Leah, but likely instead that he didn't give her the 'rightful place in his heart'.  Similar to the preceding narrative in which he 'stole Esau's blessing' because Jacob himself already felt cheated he wasn't given the 'rightful place' in Isaac's heart because he was not the firstborn twin. 

So here is the 'punch line', basically, to tie in what I got out of the teaching/message this morning regarding how this ties into how we love other people because of God's great love towards us.  If you look at the covenant meaning of marriage, you will see that basically Jacob is the bible's first example (when you are reading it from left to right like any other book) of someone who is married to multiple spouses, so the interesting concept here is that he has basically has a covenant obligation to love both unconditionally and above all other members of the opposing gender, given what marriage ought to mean.  My study bible also points out that the actual meaning of his wives' names are as follows, Leah means Cow and Rachel means Ewe (female version of sheep), as it says 'common for someone like Laban who was a farmer to use these names'.  Later on in the Exodus narrative, a calf/cow is used to symbolize idolatry (Exodus 32) and a lamb used to symbolize deliverance (Exodus 12).

In order for my point to make sense in this context, you need to equate or parallel Jacob's love to Rachel to our love for Christ (Genesis 22:8, John 1:36, Revelation 5:6) and our love for other people to Jacob's love for Leah.  Although, I don't personally assert we need to 'earn' God's love in any way similar to the manner Jacob had to continue working before he was given Rachel in marriage, I feel the passage of "So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." (Genesis 29:22) does a very good job of outlining how easy it can be to love others when our relationship with God is 'given it's rightful place' in our lives. =)