by Kevin Burton
If laughter is the best medicine, as Reader’s Digest suggests, sign me up for the laughter of Sarah.
Not that it was all fun and games.
I’m talking about Old Testament Sarah, wife of Father Abraham, patriarch of the nation of Israel.
You’ve heard the saying about he or she who laughs last, laughs loudest, or longest. True enough. But along with that, know that laughter supplied by God supplants all other.
The story of the miraculous birth of Isaac unfolds in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Abraham (then called Abram) was faithful to the call and instructions of God. So God made a covenant with him. When He did, Abraham asked God a question.
“But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”
“And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir,” (Gen. 15: 4-6 NKJV).
That was a promise from the one true Promise Keeper: you two will have a child.
It isn’t clear to me that Abraham shared this news with Sarah, for in chapter 16 Sarah comes up with a cockamamie, ultimately disastrous plan that they have a child though Hagar, the couple’s Egyptian servant.
Instead of saying to Sarah, ‘wait a minute, God said we would have a child’ Abraham went along with her idea, slept with the maid and produced a child. When the maid found out she was pregnant, she despised Sarah, then Sarah blamed the whole thing on Abraham.
That was the beginning of bad feelings between Israel and its neighbors. You can read the continuance of bad feeling any time you like in an online newspaper that covers world events.
Fast forward to chapter 18, God sends visitors to Abraham and Sarah, angels with a message about the child God promised them.
“Then they said to him, ‘Where is Sarah your wife?’ So he said, ‘Here, in the tent.’
“And He said, ‘I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.’
(Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’
“And the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.’”
“But Sarah denied it, saying, ‘I did not laugh,’ for she was afraid. And He said, ‘No, but you did laugh!’” (Gen 18: 9-15 NKJV).
Here, let’s be fair to Sarah. Abraham laughed also when God mentioned Sarah’s having a baby. This was back in chapter 17.
“Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.’”
“Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!’”
“Then God said: ‘No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him” (Gen. 17: 15-19 NKJV).
Well you know the story. God kept His promise, Sarah had a son.
Maybe God has delivered a promise to you even though you, as Abraham and Srah did, mostly worked against God and His plan, injecting your own ideas with disastrous results.
When this happens in my life I call it “maximizing.” God makes the best of my situation, though not completely removing the consequences of my self-made problems.
When God maximized for Abraham and Sarsh, this was Sarah’s reaction:
“And Sarah said, ‘God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.’” She also said, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age,’” (Gen. 21: 6-7 NKJV).
The day Isaac was weaned, the family threw a feast. And so should we celebrate the blessings of the Lord.
But above all remember that rhetorical question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?’
Answer; No.
If your eyes are on your problems, if you don’t include the vast power and resources of God among your solutions, you will come up with ideas as stupid as having Abraham father a child by a servant woman.
But glory to God. He overrides our failures and, through our faith in Jesus, brings us to rest in the laughter that lasts forever.
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