For the insignificant and despised

It’s interesting to me that God chose Leah as the one through whom Jesus would ultimately be born.

Rachel was the “loved one.”

Leah was not.

Rachel was the beautiful one.

Leah was the homely one.

And yet God chose her instead of Rachel.

It reminds me of what Paul told the Corinthians.

Brothers and sisters, consider your calling: Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.

Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something… (1 Corinthians 1:26-28)

Why does God choose such people?

…so that no one may boast in his presence. (I Corinthians 1:29)

It is solely by God’s grace and Christ’s work that we are justified, sanctified, and redeemed. (I Corinthians 1:30)

And so, Paul concludes,

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. (I Corinthians 1:31)

Ultimately, that’s what Leah did.

After her first three sons were born, you see her focusing on her wretched state, saying that she was afflicted, neglected, and unloved.

But after Judah was born, she turned her focus away from her wretched state, and instead turned her eyes to God, saying,  

This time I will praise the Lord (Genesis 29:35)

I find it only fitting then that Judah’s line was the one through whom Jesus came.

You might think of yourself as insignificant. As despised. But you are exactly the kind of person that God likes to pour his grace upon.

You are in fact the kind of person Jesus identifies with. According to Isaiah,

He didn’t have an impressive form
or majesty that we should look at him,
no appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.

He was like someone people turned away from;
he was despised, and we didn’t value him.” (Isaiah 53:2-3)

But Jesus didn’t just come to identify with the despised and insignificant. He came to redeem them.

…he was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds. (Isaiah 53:5)

Christmas isn’t just for the happy, the loved, and the powerful.

Christmas is for people like Leah. It’s for people like you. It’s for people like me.

So with Leah, let us boast in the Lord, singing, “I will praise you Lord.”