The Birthright Sold for Soup

Do you know what it is like to want something so much it makes your tummy ache? To wait, and wait, and wonder if it will ever come?

Isaac and Rebekah wanted a baby. Rebekah, remember, was the bride who had said "I will go" and ridden home from far away to marry Isaac. For years they waited. And God, who loves to give good gifts, gave them not one baby but two. Twins, wrestling inside Rebekah even before they were born.

God leaned close and whispered something strange. "The older one will serve the younger one."

Now, that was upside down. In those days the older child got everything. The big blessing, the best part of the family, all of it went to the firstborn, just because he came first. That was how the whole world did things.

But God has his own way, and his way is upside down and right side up all at once.

The first twin came out red and covered in hair, and they named him Esau. Then came his brother, holding tight to Esau's heel, and they named him Jacob. Esau was first. Jacob was second. Esau was big and strong, a hunter. Jacob stayed close to the tents.

The big blessing, the birthright, belonged to Esau. It was his.

One day Jacob was cooking a pot of red stew. The smell curled warm through the camp. And in came Esau from the fields, so hungry he could hardly stand.

"Give me some of that red stew," Esau said. "I'm starving. I think I might faint."

Jacob saw his chance. "Sell me your birthright first," he said.

Esau looked at the steaming pot. Then he looked at his big blessing, the precious thing that was his. And right then, with his belly aching, the soup seemed worth more.

"What good is a birthright," he said, "if I die of hunger?"

So he traded it, the whole birthright, for one bowl of soup.

Esau ate the bread and the stew, and he got up, and he walked away. He did not even seem to care.

A bowl of soup feels so big when you are hungry. And the best things can feel so small, and so far away.

But watch what God was doing. God did not choose Esau, the strong one, the first one, the one the whole world would have picked. God chose Jacob, the second one, the smaller one, the one who came in holding on by the heel.

This is how God loves. He keeps choosing the ones the world walks right past: the little ones, the last ones, the ones who are hungry for something they cannot make for themselves.

And one day, far down this very family line, the greatest blessing of all would come walking into the world. He would not grab, and he would not trade. He would open his hands and give himself away, so that all the hungry children could come home and be fed, and never go hungry again.

But that feast was still far off. For now the stew pot stood empty, Esau was back in the fields, and Jacob sat by the tents holding a birthright he had not been given, only bought. Turn the page, and see what that bargain would cost this family.