Sarah is an old woman, almost 90 years old. Her hair is a tired gray, lacking in luster. Her skin is leathery from years of desert sun. Many memories of joy fill her, but she still aches inside, empty and hollow, the promise of what could be, which never came.
Her husband is a good man, providing more than she needs in home and hearth. She and Abraham have much, beyond need, almost beyond want. But she remains without a child. She dreams only a bleak future, empty of the joys she anticipated.
Sarah remembers when the hope for a child burned bright, intense in its fervor. Abraham burst into their tent, beaming with joy, an almost crazy look in his eyes. “God is going to make of us a great nation, Sarah! Not only children, Sarah, but a nation, a nation God will use to bless the entire world!”
Year passed. How many? Sarah stopped counting, for each year became more painful, as the promised joy now turned bitter. 24 years of waiting, 24 years of empty promises! The burning hope within her grew dim. Will the flame soon die, without even a wisp of smoke, replaced with resentment at God, who speaks but does little?
Today will be no different. Sarah fills the void, keeping busy when three visitors arrive. Abraham, wanting to be a gracious host, asks her to make a meal. The meal, now prepared, Sarah waits. She’s good at waiting, for she’s been doing it for so long!
The sun blazes, and Sarah stands out of view, behind the tent flap, shading herself from the sun. Beads of sweat roll down her neck as she listens to the men talk.
Here we are today, sitting in our Lord’s tent. Like Sarah, why are you waiting, and what do you expect? If you are young, do you await the privileges to come with being older? Are you alone, waiting for a friend? Are you struggling to make your money last through the month, waiting for a raise? Are you sick, waiting to be well?
Sarah’s ears now quiver, for the men are talking about her! “Where is your wife, Sarah?” one of the strangers asks. “In the tent,” Abraham answers. “This time next year, I will come back,” he tells her husband.
The conversation stops. Is this some pregnant pause? A moment later, the conversation continues: “Your wife, Sarah, will bear a son.” Behind the tent flap, Sarah’s eyes grow wide. The promise, which Abraham spoke to her so many years ago, comes to her once more.
This time, however, the promise is different, no longer blurry, but focused—next year! Gone is the ambiguity, something to take place in some unknown time, hidden to Abraham and Sarah. Next year! She now has a date!
You, too, received your share of promises, right? Some pill to melt off the pounds. You take it, but your weight stays the same. Lied to once more. The preacher on TV modulates his voice: “God will heal you, but only if your faith is strong enough.”
Such promises sound like good news. We hunger to believe them, for we, you and me, all need some good news. Here, most of all, here in this house of God, where we bring our deepest hunger and yearning, we need the best news of all. We need real promises we can believe!
Sarah almost falls for it, but she stops: “I’m a wrinkled, old prune.” Her time of the month is now more of a stranger to her than the strangers now visiting with Abraham. Her breasts are too dried up to nurse a child. She thought about her husband of many years. Abraham can’t even do the deed anymore. How are we to have a child? She can’t help herself, and she laughs.
A laugh of disbelief leaves her lips. Years ago, hope burned within, but not now. She spent way too many years drawing water from the well to suffer such foolishness! She can’t explain it, but her gut tells her this is a con job.
The salesperson talks you into buying the vacuum cleaner, and your money is gone. The miracle diet is a scam, for all the pounds return. The healing we prayed for suffers a setback, and our faith in God wavers, not receiving what we expect from Him.
Does that describe you, as it does Sarah? Have you stopped hoping and quit believing, even though God still speaks His promises to you in the way He said He would? Are you embittered? “Oh, I used to have faith, but now I can’t even pray.”
Such people fill the world: people who used to belong, who sang and laughed with joy in God’s house. But no more! Somebody sold them a bill of goods. Put more money in the plate and God will bless you with material wealth. You only need more faith, and God will heal you. So, you give and give, you pray and pray, but nothing happens.
Will you wind up like one of them? Listen now as Sarah picks up more conversation through the tent door. “Why did Sarah laugh?” The stranger points out her unbelief! But then she understands: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” This stranger is no stranger, but God Himself!
Even Sarah’s heart is no mystery to God. She hides behind the tent door, unseen to the mortal eye, but not to God. He even glimpses the stifling sadness in her heart, even while her disbelieving laughter enters His ears. God knows what Sarah is doing.
He rebukes her with a gentle word if only to teach. “Sarah you aren’t a stranger to me, but am I a stranger to you? I know your sadness. Do you realize my power to help?”
Some news may be too unreal to be true—for us. But what God brings is only too much to be true for Sarah, not Him. For God is the one who brings it, and nothing is too hard for Him. Sarah’s picture of God is too small. Is yours, as well?
We often live with a weak faith in weak God. In our adult sensibilities, we’ve shrunk Him down. God is no longer all-powerful enough to account for life, too small to command respect. What’s your picture of God? Is He an absentee landlord? Does He mind us from afar, uninterested and uncaring?
Learn what Sarah learned! God is here in this world in the ways He chooses to reveal Himself. God comes in His grace, to bring help, unlooked for and unsought. We understand this even better than Sarah, for we know Jesus came into our world at Bethlehem. To the startled young virgin who would bring this God into the world, the angel told her, “Nothing is impossible for God” (Luke 1:37).
Unbelievable? For us, yes—but not for God. So, what do you hope for as you sit here this morning? Do you want an old hatred inside you to die and germinate into love? Do you want your marriage to turn around? Is it too hard for God to turn enemies into friends?
God did as much with Saul, who wrote our Epistle reading for today. Is God too weak to lift the burden of sin and guilt you carry, which keeps your heart from being free? Unbelievable? For us, yes—but not for God.
Why? God will take your sin and pay for it with His life before our eyes. He did that on the wood of the cross. His cross of death opened the way to the heart of God. Our Lord’s Word came to Saul: “Why are you persecuting me?” The seismic love of Jesus came to him, changing his entire life—bitter enemies no more.
The unexpected love, which changed Saul, can change us, as well. What do you think, Sarah? What if I told you death could be defeated? What if I said you will again see those dear ones you buried, with tears of joy in your eyes? Would you say that can’t be true, that even God can’t do that?
Dear sister and brother: That happened at our Lord’s grave on the first Easter morning. There, Jesus rose to life and met His astonished followers. They lived the truth that nothing is too hard for the Lord.
We will not always understand His mysterious ways, any more than we can understand the workings of our everyday world. Even now, so much in this world eludes us in how it works. The more we learn, the more we find out how much we don’t understand. Each mystery reveals several others beneath it. Such mystery in this creation, fallen though it is, testifies to the mystery of God.
You can go to the doctor to get some medicine, but we are powerless to heal sickness into eternity. Not so for God. He forgives your sin and will raise your body from death, which, for you, seems all too much to be true. Yes, but not for God.
We now leave Sarah, but not as we found her. One more year she waited. This time, however, is different. For she lives in hope! She met, in person, the God big enough to keep His promise. And when the baby arrived a year later, no name was found more fitting than Isaac. Isaac, which means “laughter”! Who’s laughing now?
God in His mercy gave Sarah a new and beautiful laughter. So, how are you doing as you wait? In Christ, your waiting becomes one filled with hope and joy, just like Sarah’s. God promises that you and He will laugh at the last. For the promises He makes to you are both real and right: eternal life and salvation. Amen.
