Anticipating the Promised Son: The Story of Sarah (Genesis 18:9-15)

Can I get a laugh?

Why do we laugh? Anthropologists have been studying that question for years, even centuries. Freud looked at it. Darwin studied it. They, of course, were attempting to probe the question without consideration to a Creator. But there is something laughter unique to humans. Laughter seems to be in our DNA. So much so, that when someone does not laugh when the occasion calls for such, we think: what’s wrong with that guy?

We laugh without consciously prompting ourselves to do it. We also know a fake laugh when we hear it. Laughter is used in therapy. Laughter really is the best medicine, creating positive environments in healing. Laughter is contagious… it is more often than not, shared in the community. One person laughs and pretty soon everyone is laughing.

And that brings us to our topic and text this morning. Laughter is at the heart of the salvation story. The laughter of our salvation. If we had not considered it before, our text this morning forces us to reckon with the laughter of our salvation… in the birth of a son.

Sarah is barren

This morning we are with Abraham and Sarah. By the time we get to Genesis 18, there’s a real problem with Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah have been nomads wandering the boundaries of the promised land for more than 30 years. God promised to make Abraham’s name great and give him offspring as numerous as the sand of the seashore. But there was one problem. Abraham has no son. Sarah is barren. She has no child.

As we progress through the chapters of Genesis, year after year goes by… more than 30 years after the first promise of the covenant was made to Abraham… what was once a faint whisper, “Sarai is barren” begins to blare like a siren to drown out the story… “Sarai is barren, having no child.” Abraham and Sarah are getting old. And there’s no heir. The Promises hang in the balance.

God shows up

We get to chapter 18, and God shows up. Abraham throws a grand feast. This passage says God rests and reclines at the feast. Something special is going on. God is about to fix the really big problem for Abraham and Sarah. The elephant in the room. The problem of Abraham’s lack of an heir himself.

God Promises

God gets to the point of his visit:

Genesis 18:9-10 ““Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he answered. The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!”

Where is your wife Sarah? The full weight of the question must’ve stunned the two nomads. Sarah’s name hasn’t been mentioned by Abraham (at least as far as the text lets on). She seemingly hasn’t been introduced to the visitors, and yet they know her name. By invoking Sarah’s name, this story takes on heightened drama. It is electric. The fuller picture of the occasion is being brought into view. God is pulling Sarah into the conversation and into the story.

And then God makes the pronouncement he came for, a Promise for the ages, a Promise that reverberates through history. There is a promise of a son, but it’s a two-fold promise. “I will surely return.”

What is inseparable from the birth of a son to Sarah is God’s activity and presence. “I will surely come back” conveys a sense of personal participation and presence. God’s presence will result in fertility. This visit will be at the appointed time. In the appointed time, God will visit Sarah and she will give birth to a son. There will be no son if God is not present… a fact, that is necessitated by what follows.

Implied here is a clue of what Abraham and Sarah may have suspected all along: Her barrenness was not a quirk of nature. Her barrenness was not a physical abnormality. God had shut the womb to be opened in the fullness of time… for such a time as this.

Such a pronouncement borders on the stupendous. While her barrenness is attributed to divine activity, in the providence of Abraham and Sarah’s lives that barrenness is taken to an entirely different level. Sarah isn’t simply barren, having never given birth to a child. She is beyond barren. Sarah was passed the age of child-bearing. She’s 89 years old. Sarah is too old to have kids.

Yet over against that impossibility, God has just said, “in the appointed time, I will be present among you again, and Sarah will have a son.” In fact, it’s the impossibility that is precisely God’s design. The birth of this promised son defies possibility. The son of promise through whom all of the nations will be blessed over the whole of the earth will be born in a birth that is not of this world. This birth will be other-worldly. It can be no other way. Abraham knows it. Sarah knows it. Israel knows it. The whole world knows it. The advent of this “son” is utterly and completely of God’s doing.

A Laugh at the Promise

And how does Sarah respond to this? A ridiculous proposition elicits an incredulous response.

Genesis 18:12 “Sarah laughed to herself"

Sarah’s response is at the heart of this pronouncement. Sarah laughs. “Sarah laughed to herself”.

This laugh is one of disbelief, more than likely unbelief. It is not mocking. It is simply taking stock of the impossibility and the ridiculousness of the proposition, all things being equal. The word “laugh” is mentioned four times in these few verses.

God’s promise of the birth of a son, in light of its physical impossibility, is met with unbelief, and the unbelief produces a subconscious reflext, a laugh. The pronouncement has pulled out of Sarah a response that cannot be concealed. Her laugh betrays her heart.

Here, in the presence of the divine, Sarah is at the end of herself, but she refuses to let go of those inner thoughts that assert themselves into the equation. Sarah is not yet ready to concede that God will do this without her help. Her barrenness, for her, has become the identity of her faith. Sarah cannot see or believe anything but her barren hopelessness.

God’s Questions

God is not about to let this pass. Sarah laughs inwardly, but almost immediately it’s time for public confession. You see, this entire sequence has been for Sarah’s benefit all along. God promises a son to bring Sarah to the point where she must acknowledge her unbelief.

So… God asks two more questions.

Genesis 18:13-14 “But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ Is anything impossible for the Lord?

“Why did Sarah laugh?” Only the omniscient, omnipotent God would know this. Her inner, hidden thoughts have been revealed. Her unbelief is no longer a secret. The omniscient God asks a question he already knows the answer to because he wants Sarah to embrace the pronouncement as gospel.

Yes, the pronouncement of a son is gospel. It is salvation. All of redemption is wrapped up in the covenant made with Abraham. If Abraham has no son, God would be a liar. If Abraham has no son, the seed of the woman will never crush the seed of the serpent. But the gospel and its Redeemer and its salvation rides on the impossibility that man can do this. That man can partake in this. So long as Sarah is trying to fix things herself, so long as her hopes lie in the possibility that she herself can bear Abraham a son, there will be no son, there will be no salvation. God has shut her womb, God has allowed her body to become old enough to shut down child-bearing capability. That “all nations will be blessed through Abraham” must rest on God’s design and his work. God himself is going to provide a son.

“Why did Sarah laugh?” Sarah laughed because she doesn’t believe. She believes she’s too old. She believes that the covenant blessings are dependent on what she contributes. Laughter is not the best medicine here. Laughter is Sarah’s subconscious reflection betraying a heart that has not yet embraced the promise of a son, a son through whom will come all of God’s blessings to all of his people…forever.

God’s next question get’s to the heart of the matter: Is anything too hard for the LORD? Sarah and Abraham, of course, know the answer to this question. Is anything, including the impossibility of childbirth, impossible for God? The answer must be no. Again, God does not simply state it in a declarative sentence. He is asking a question aimed at helping Sarah see her unbelief.

Of course, nothing is too hard for the LORD. That’s the point. Sarah has been acting as if God needs her help. She’s too old. If not her, then she will substitute Hagar. The covenant promises depend on her. She laughs because her personal contribution is beyond her physical capabilities, capabilities in which she has placed her confidence.

God confronts Sarah’s laughter with more gospel. He again promises Abraham (with Sarah obviously listening)

Genesis 18:14 “At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.”

In the pronouncement there is salvation. Salvation and life are being promised. All Sarah can see is shriveled skin. All she can feel is a body that shut down long ago.

Laughter transformed

And that’s the end of the story, right? No. God in his grace doesn’t not allow the story to end there. Sarah is one of His own. He will not let her remain in her laughter. He is going to remember Sarah. He will be faithful to his promise, but he will bring Sarah to a place where she embraces the gospel.

Into the darkness of human depravity come the absolutely glorious words of Genesis 21:1…

Genesis 21:1 “The Lord came to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.”

The LORD visited Sarah as he had said. Here are the echoes of the promise, I will return to you. I will be with you, I will personally see to this, I will dwell among you. My presence is going to accomplish this. “and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised.”

This is grace. This is wonderful, stupendous grace. Sarah didn’t deserve it. But God has done it. God has made good on his promise. The impossible has been done. The covenant promises have been rescued from oblivion. Abraham will have a posterity as numerous as the sand on the seashore. God himself has provided an heir to bring to pass all that he had promised.

Genesis 21:2-6 “Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him. Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

What a difference from chapter 18 to chapter 21. Note the language. This is gospel speech: “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.” Laughter has been redeemed. Laughter has been infused with grace from above. This is no longer the laughter of unbelief. God is the source point, the originator of joy-filled laughter. Sarah gets it now. Sarah’s heart has been transformed. No longer is laughter a subconscious revelation of unbelief. This laughter is enriched by and laced with joy. This laughter embraces the gospel. This laughter places its hope in the God who accomplishes the impossible. There is wonder at the Son’s birth. There is amazement. There is joy. What was impossible has been accomplished by God. The joy and laughter of salvation have come to this house. The promises made to Abraham regarding his offspring are secure because it is God and God alone who accomplishes this.

Isaac means “he laughs”. Isaac as one of Israel’s great patriarchs is a reminder that laughter is inseparable from the salvation story. In the midst of human depravity, salvation and hope through the promised son are cause for laughter, merriment, and joy. There is a heavenly origin to this kind of laughter. “God has made me laugh.” Laughter that is laced with joy has its grounds in the grand and glorious accomplishments of a God who is rich in mercy and abundant in grace.

And this laughter is not a hidden laughter. Sarah not only says “God has made laughter for me”… “everyone who hears will laugh over me.” Everyone or ALL who hear will laugh over me.” ALL who hear. Wherever the good news of the birth of this son is proclaimed, there will be laughter and joy infused into the story because God has accomplished the impossible. Sarah says “all” because she has confidence that God, through a son, will indeed bless all nations of the world. The covenant will be accomplished through a son whose name is “He laughs”.

Wherever these nations are blessed, there will be the proclamation of laughter and joy in the God who accomplished the impossible. A proclamation that highlights God’s goodness in accomplishing for man that which man cannot do must be infused with laughter, and merriment, and banqueting and celebration… the response of the redeemed reclining at table in the presence of God.

God Accomplishes the Impossible

As we celebrate Advent… The miraculous birth of this promised son that could only be accomplished by God has in view another birth of the ultimate promised son, the one who is THE offspring of Abraham. In the advent we need to see a God who accomplishes the impossible… our salvation through the birth of a son. Is anything, is the salvation of a people who cannot save themselves, too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time, God paid a visit to a woman in Nazareth. The LORD came to Mary and did for her what He had promised. Who would have told Joseph that Mary would have borne to him a son as a virgin? There in Bethlehem, an impossible son is born, a Son who not only brings to pass all of the covenant blessings, but fulfills the terms of the covenant as a covenant to his people.

A New Covenant has been inaugurated, one that has lavished on us all of the blessings that were first promised to Abraham. While the birth of Isaac ensured that Abraham’s covenant would there would be an offspring, Isaac was not the ultimate offspring. Isaac and his the promise of a Son pointed to a new day, a New Covenant, a New Isaac, THE seed of Abraham. Through this New Isaac born in a Bethlehem manger all people groups of the world are blessed as recipients of a grand and glorious salvation. Is anything too hard for Jesus?

But as we consider Jesus, we must see ourselves behind the tent curtain, laughing in unbelief in need of transformation. We are the laughers who are self-reliant, convinced that we can save ourselves, by any and all means. We are convinced God needs our help. Confronted with the impossible, we laugh… unconvinced that Christ really has accomplished all things for our salvation on our behalf. We are in desperate need of the God who comes to feast and dine with his people, even as he confronts our self-reliance. We are in constant need of a gospel that tells us “God will do this and has done this through a Son, Jesus.”

The New Testament tells us that Abraham “laughed” to see Christ’s day, and he saw it and was glad. Is that us? Is the gospel cause for laughter and celebration? Does grace produce within us a wellspring of joy-enriched laughter? As we consider the birth of the New Isaac, and we remember all that He has accomplished for us on our behalf, may we be people of laughter.

Let’s Pray.

This Table is a Table of laughter. Of joy. The bread and wine here speak to celebration feasting. Merriment. There is salvation here, there is forgiveness here, and it is to be celebrated. It is to cause us laughter because we can’t do this. God does this impossible here. The stupendous. Meeting and feeding sinners like you and me.