A Child Called Laughter
Opening Song – Man of Sorrows https://youtu.be/LZjBJuHgXPE?si=vzvH_q6X5QHxOdEb
Question for discussion: If a close friend or loved one called to check in on you, what would you want them to ask about?
Read: Genesis 18:1-15 and 21:1-7
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+18:1-15&version=NLT
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+21:1-7&version=NLT
Head/Mind – The Helpful Information
In this story, the LORD/Yahweh visits Abraham in form of three men. No explanation is provided, we are only told that they are somehow, together, Yahweh, Abraham’s God. At the beginning of the story, Abraham and Sarah do not seem to know that their visitors are God. Nor does the text tell us at what point Abraham realizes who his visitors are. Indeed, the story is rather vague about many things, leaving us to think and ponder.
But the story really begins with a meal. Eating is an important part of living in covenant with one another. So, when God is about to keep his covenant promise to Abraham, he comes and shares a meal with Abraham’s family.
In verse 9 the visitors ask about Sarah by name. And the LORD promises to return to Sarah in a year, at which time, she will have a child. In verses 11-13, we are told that Sarah laughs.
Heart – The Personal Connection
Sarah laughs. But what kind of laugh is it? Maybe it is the light hearted laugh of someone who knows that their deepest desires are not going to come in this lifetime. You can laugh this kind of laughter when you have set your eyes on another home, beyond this one. That is what heaven and new creation are for the aging saint, or the dying Christian.
In The Last Battle, the final book in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis depicts the end of Narnia…and entering the new Narnia. An excerpt follows.
It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old
Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste.
Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have
been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely
bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains.
And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have
been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you
suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the
looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were
in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much
want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.
It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried:
“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been look- ing for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee- hee! Come further up, come further in!”
He shook his mane and sprang forward into a great gal- lop — a Unicorn’s gallop, which, in our world, would have carried him out of sight in a few moments. But now amost strange thing happened. Everyone else began to run, and they found, to their astonishment, that they could keep up with him: not only the Dogs and the humans but even fat little Puzzle and short-legged Poggin the Dwarf. The air flew in their faces as if they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen. The country flew past as if they were seeing it from the windows of an express train. Faster and faster they raced, but no one got hot or tired or out of breath (1 C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, HarperTrophy, 2000, pp. 195-197).
I like to think that Sarah’s laugh was the light-hearted laughter of heaven. But maybe Sarah’s laughter was not that dreamy, light-hearted laughter of heaven. Maybe it was a bitter, sad laughter that comes from a disappointed heart.
Whatever kind of laugh it was, when the LORD confronts Sarah, she lies, and says she did not laugh. The LORD is not being cruel when he questions her. He intends to turn this bitter laughter into the joyful laughter. He will change Sarah’s destiny and her heart, by giving her what she most desired. But when the Lord spoke to Sarah she was filled with fear, for the LORD has seen right through her. Little did she know that those piercing eyes are also the eyes of love.
Chapter 21 begins with these words: The LORD kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he promised. They named their child Isaac, which is a play on the word laughter. In verses six and seven we read: “And Sarah declared, ‘God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will urge with me. Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his own age!’”
Hands – The Practical Application
Now, I want to be very careful here, because I do not want it to sound like all of the promises of God are fulfilled in this lifetime. Many are not. And, I don’t want to make Sarah’s feeling the interpretive key to this passage. Regardless of how she was feeling at the moment, the passage is about what Sarah discovered about God, not about her feelings
In her book Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness, Kathryn Greene-McCreight writes about the following inner-anguish many go through, especially those who struggle with suicidal ideation, depression, and anxiety.
I think many people think of God as a self-help device, to improve our personality; to help us quite smoking, drinking, overeating, abusing our kids. To help us be nicer people, so we can stand to live in our own skin, to have more fiends. To say that God doesn’t really care too much about our personalities is to deny that God is deeply concerned about these things. Personality and its betterment motivates much religion in America these days, because most of us are functional atheists, even though we might be quite pious indeed. We can’t imagine how our religion would require anything of us that would not be directed solely to our own betterment. But if God is really the God of the Bible, then that God demands our worship and obedience despite how we feel about it, despite how we feel about ourselves or others. Of course, it would be nice to feel good. And it would be especially nice not to go though life wanting to end it. But even this doesn’t separate us from God. Even wanting to return the gift of life does not damn us. “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Even before we made the slightest move out of our sloth to reach out to God. The hard part is choosing life, though, and it ever demanded of us. That is the hard part. But, how we feel does not change anything about our life before God (page 89).
As someone who has struggled with anxiety all of my life. When people find out about my depression and anxiety, I am asked often about my happy demeanor. Am I faking it? Or, do I always feel happy. I am always glad to talk about this subject, because I think that my public role gives me a platform for helping people with something I am quite familiar with – the experience of anxiety and depression. No. I do not always feel happy. And, no, I am not faking it when I act cheerful and upbeat.
I, like countless Christians before me, have discovered the Spiritual gift of Joy. Joy is greater than happiness. Joy is when you learn to base your decisions and behavior on the goodness of God. It is when you stop planting your feet on the shifting sands of feelings and emotions, and begin to placing them on unmoving ground of God’s faithfulness.
Discipleship: Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Many of us, like Sarah, have known sadness in our hearts. Yet, many of us, like Sarah, have discovered that the secret of joyful living has nothing to do with the external circumstances we face, or even the internal changes of human emotions, but on the unchanging goodness and faithfulness of God.
In short, happiness is a choice that we can make every day. Is is it an easy choice? For many of us, no. But it is one we can make because God’s faithfulness never changes.
Sara discovers the faithfulness of God, and through her discovery, we discover God’s faithfulness; that it is a sure foundation upon which to build our lives. That is what today’s passage is all about.
Closing Song – Like a River Glorious.