Such good news. Long-delayed but guaranteed.
And Sarah, standing in the entrance to their tent, hears it and laughs. This isn’t, however, a response of joyous welcome - it's what Over the Rhine have called “the laugh of recognition - when you laugh but you feel like dyin’…” Sarah was barren, worn out, and Abraham was old. The time for holding onto the promise was long gone. Weighing the LORD’s words against reality’s harsh and heavy sentence has tipped the scales for Sarah: this laugh is the long, slow sigh that is borne of pain and longing and disappointment. Heartache after heartache. Frustrated hopes as heavy as a snow-drift. The wretched bitterness of exploiting others in the vain attempt to manufacture blessing (Gen 16). It’s all there in the wistful, disbelieving laugh of recognition.
And few of us have not been there, too. Overhearing others exult in promises that can only echo in your hollowed-out soul. It isn’t rank unbelief and cynical rejection of God’s Word that makes you nod grimly in solidarity with Sarah; it’s the weariness, it’s the years of struggle, it’s all that you cannot ever bring yourself to say out loud for fear of condemnation.
Her laugh, though, is heard. The LORD asks why she laughed and Sarah’s instinctive response is to deny it - she doesn’t want anyone, least of all these visitors, to know that her faith is old and cracked, unable to hold anything for very long now. Every last drop of hope eventually seeps through the gaping holes in her soul. Maybe you know that feeling? Maybe you’ve made the same denials?
There is good news. Nothing is too hard for the LORD and, ultimately, all his promises are answered and find their fulfilment in our Lord Jesus Christ - unveiling the astonishing glory of God, through the wisdom and power of the cross and the renewal of all things through his resurrection. That is, indeed, the most wonder-filled good news.
And Sarah, standing in the entrance to their tent, hears it and laughs. This isn’t, however, a response of joyous welcome - it's what Over the Rhine have called “the laugh of recognition - when you laugh but you feel like dyin’…” Sarah was barren, worn out, and Abraham was old. The time for holding onto the promise was long gone. Weighing the LORD’s words against reality’s harsh and heavy sentence has tipped the scales for Sarah: this laugh is the long, slow sigh that is borne of pain and longing and disappointment. Heartache after heartache. Frustrated hopes as heavy as a snow-drift. The wretched bitterness of exploiting others in the vain attempt to manufacture blessing (Gen 16). It’s all there in the wistful, disbelieving laugh of recognition.
And few of us have not been there, too. Overhearing others exult in promises that can only echo in your hollowed-out soul. It isn’t rank unbelief and cynical rejection of God’s Word that makes you nod grimly in solidarity with Sarah; it’s the weariness, it’s the years of struggle, it’s all that you cannot ever bring yourself to say out loud for fear of condemnation.
Her laugh, though, is heard. The LORD asks why she laughed and Sarah’s instinctive response is to deny it - she doesn’t want anyone, least of all these visitors, to know that her faith is old and cracked, unable to hold anything for very long now. Every last drop of hope eventually seeps through the gaping holes in her soul. Maybe you know that feeling? Maybe you’ve made the same denials?
There is good news. Nothing is too hard for the LORD and, ultimately, all his promises are answered and find their fulfilment in our Lord Jesus Christ - unveiling the astonishing glory of God, through the wisdom and power of the cross and the renewal of all things through his resurrection. That is, indeed, the most wonder-filled good news.
But the good news also includes the fact that none of her struggles disqualify Sarah from bearing the child of promise. And so the day surely came, at last, when the sigh of her broken heart in the laugh of recognition became the joy-filled laughter of a promise kept.
And none of our struggles to believe, from within the maelstrom of our miseries, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. His promises stand, even in the face of our weakness and helplessness; even when we are faithless, battered into submission by waves of doubt, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
One day, the weeping of the night will be turned into the joy of the morning. And one day, like Sarah, we will also laugh for a second time.
************
O safe to the Rock that is higher than I
My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly;
So sinful, so weary, Thine, Thine would I be,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
In the calm of the noontide, in sorrow’s lone hour,
In times when temptation casts o’er me its power;
In the tempests of life, on its wide, heaving sea,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
How oft in the conflict, when pressed by the foe,
And none of our struggles to believe, from within the maelstrom of our miseries, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. His promises stand, even in the face of our weakness and helplessness; even when we are faithless, battered into submission by waves of doubt, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
One day, the weeping of the night will be turned into the joy of the morning. And one day, like Sarah, we will also laugh for a second time.
************
O safe to the Rock that is higher than I
My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly;
So sinful, so weary, Thine, Thine would I be,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
In the calm of the noontide, in sorrow’s lone hour,
In times when temptation casts o’er me its power;
In the tempests of life, on its wide, heaving sea,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
How oft in the conflict, when pressed by the foe,
I have fled to my refuge and breathed out my woe;
How often, when trials like sea-billows roll,
Have I hidden in Thee, O Thou Rock of my soul.
Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
How often, when trials like sea-billows roll,
Have I hidden in Thee, O Thou Rock of my soul.
Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee,
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee.
(William Orcutt Cushing, 1823-1903)
