We Laugh and God Acts

“The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh?’

Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?’’

–Genesis 18:13a, 14a

Eleven years ago, I had the privilege of officiating at the wedding of a couple named Linda and Lee. Both were active in the local community and the bride a long-time member of the congregation. As two people in their 60s, one unique dynamic of the ceremony was having their children and grandchildren serve as the wedding party. 

Prior to the moment when everyone would enter the sanctuary Chloe, the bride’s eight year old granddaughter, walked over to her grandmother.  “Are you and Mr. Lee going to have a baby?” she asked. Linda laughed and said, “I don’t think so, sweetheart.” “Why not?” She gently tried to answer the child’s query by adding, “I’m too old to have another baby.” Chloe was  undeterred. “Well,” she said, “there was another woman in the Bible, “who was a lot older than you and she had a baby!” In the face of such irrefutable logic, Linda changed the subject!

I suspect the Biblical scene Chloe had in mind was the passage that includes the verse we read moments ago. In it an 89-year-old woman learns she will have a son and the news generated laughter then, too, before raising a question that lives on for us still.

At the time of that encounter a childless couple named Abraham and Sarah had been waiting twenty-four years since God promised to make a great nation of them. By any standard then or today the window for biological parenthood would seem closed as on the day recalled in our text Abraham was 99 years old and his wife a decade younger. Three visitors appear.

Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent when he looks up and sees the men standing nearby. Acting upon the sense of hospitality still valued in that part of the world, he urges the men to stay and offers food, water and a place to rest. When they accept, he rushes to Sarah who prepares the meal. He takes it to the guests and stands while they eat. A conversation begins.

“Where is your wife Sarah?’ Abraham points toward the tent as one visitor says, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” 

With that word, it soon becomes clear that one of these guests is God. Sarah overhears his promise from inside the tent. She laughs quietly to herself and says “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” God asks Abraham “Why did Sarah laugh…Is anything too wonderful for the LORD? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.”As the scene draws to a close, it isn’t clear if it is Abraham or God who speaks to Sarah, but in either case, she denies laughing and is told “Oh yes, you did laugh.” 

It’s a beautiful scene that reverberates throughout Scripture. The laughter from Sarah on that day, becomes memorialized in the son she bears the following year, as Isaac literally means “he laughs.” Thus, every time Abraham and Sarah called his name in the years that followed they gave voice to their first response to such incredible news.  

Still, it is God’s question that I put before you on this day: “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” 

The Biblical story is filled with moments when human beings wrestled with that question. The Israelites expected to live out their days as slaves, but then feared they would die as the waters of the sea loomed before them and Pharaoh’s army behind them. That moment was not beyond God’s ability to redeem. When Ruth chose to go with her mother-in-law to Moab after the death of her husband, she had an uncertain future. As events unfold she re-marries and one of her descendants is David, the king of Israel. When Jesus’ body was removed from the cross on a Friday long ago it appeared as if evil had won, yet those circumstances were no match for God either. 

The narrative scope of Scripture reveals there is nothing too wonderful for God to do which means there is nothing in our life beyond God’s concern either. God is concerned for those seeking to have a child today, but is also concerned that every child makes good choices and finds a way to use their divinely-given gifts. God is concerned with whatever is important to us—our health or job, our marriage or friendships, our struggles or dreams. 

“Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?” God asks.  

It’s a question that encourages us to bring whatever is happening in our lives to the attention of our Maker and trust in God’s ability to respond wisely. When we do, sometimes we will see an immediate result.  In other occasions, there is no perceptible change and sometimes, we can see the outcome only much later. 

Yet then there are the times when the possibility seems so far-fetched all we can do is laugh.  Perhaps it is then that we most need to pay attention to what happens next.

God of infinite power and love, I pray that you will surprise me in response to what is before me on this day and to do so in such an unexpected way that all I can do is laugh.. Amen.