I have made a lot of promises during my lifetime. Most, I hope I have kept, but I do know that there have been times when I did not keep them. Sometimes perhaps through neglect; sometimes, because circumstances were beyond my control. Sometimes I simply could not keep my promise because I wasn’t capable of keeping it.
I know I’ve made some promises that others were skeptical about me being able to keep, but I don’t ever remember having somebody laugh over my promise. For many years I was aware that Sarah laughed when God continued with His promise to give Abraham a son through her. I think it is common for men to push the blame onto the woman, just as Adam did to Eve. But in this case, it was Abraham that laughed at God’s promise before Sarah. But in the end, we do know that it is God that gets the last laugh, not at the expense of Abraham and Sarah but in their favor and ours, because His last laugh is against sin, death, and the devil. He gets the last laugh because, His will is accomplished just as He declares.
It had been twenty-five years since God had called Abram out of the land of Haran his father and promised to make of him a great nation, to bless him and make his name great so that Abram in turn would be a blessing. Abram lives in this promise for a while as he goes to Egypt and rescues Lot and receives a blessing from Melchizedek. Again the Lord came to Abram promising him a son and descendants as numerous as the stars in heaven. Abram wanted to believe, but his doubt was beginning to show. It wasn’t long after that that Abram and his wife concoct a plan to bring about God’s promise through Sarah’s servant, Hagar. And so, Abram and Sarah seem to have been content with teasing the biological clock and beating God to the fulfillment of His plan.
Imagine their surprise when God decides to visit again with the same old promise of a son. Their patience had long worn thin, but God persisted with His promise and they both laugh in His face. Not together but separately. They both were thinking the same thing – time on that promise had expired – did God take me for a fool? It would take nothing short of a miracle to bring about a son from this marriage. It would be an act of creation to bring forth a son from a womb that was now dry as dust.
God had the patience to wait for the right moment in time. He had the faithfulness to follow through on His promise of a son. He had the creative power to bring forth life from the dust of a womb now dead. And so, Sarah conceived and bore to Abraham a son in his old age and from this son would be born a nation that like it’s patriarch would be, at times, impatient and unbelieving, yet God would once again get the last laugh.
It was from this nation of promise that the Son of promise would be born; a Son born to a virgin. A miracle birth of the Son of Man and Son of God, where God’s redemptive power would be seen in the miracle of a Son conceived in a womb that could not possible conceive. A Son that would be mocked and jeared and crucified – laughed at and spit upon. Yet the Son was patient and faithful, fulfilling once again the promise of the Father that to us a Son would be born, and His name would be called Immanuel.
So, who’s laughing now? Can God do it again? Can He continue do the miraculous and bring forth sons? Sons by adoption in His Son? We might say that God laughs again and again in every baptism as He adopts another child into the kingdom of His Son. God laughs at the devil in the exorcism that is performed as water and Word are poured over the child that had no hope, no promise apart from this promise of God, that through the son of Abraham all the nations would be blessed.
It is through the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ that you are blessed; for in Him you receive the blessing of adoption as sons. Into Him and into His death and resurrection you are incorporated through the blessed miracle of Holy Baptism, where God brings forth new life were only death before was known.
Who would have said that my wife and I would have brought forth Christian children, or who would have said that you would have brought forth Christian sons and daughters? But God has made laughter for us as He did for Sarah, because he has sanctified our homes by the Gospel of His Son, that our children to would be children of promise – adopted sons in the kingdom of heaven.
God is good for His promises. He provided Abraham with a Son. And He continues to provide for Himself Sons cleansed by the blood of His Son. Amen.
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