A Word About If I Didn't Laugh, I'd Cry

Laughter is said to be the best medicine, but sometimes, as we will see today in our series “Family Business” our laughter can be more like a snort of derision.  This is where Sarah was in Genesis 18:1-15:

Then the Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting in the entrance of his tent during the heat of the day. 2 He looked up, and he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed to the ground. 3 Then he said, “My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, please do not go on past your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, that you may wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 I will bring a bit of bread so that you may strengthen yourselves. This is why you have passed your servant’s way. Later, you can continue on.” “Yes,” they replied, “do as you have said." 6 So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Knead three measures of fine flour and make bread.” 7 Meanwhile, Abraham ran to the herd and got a tender, choice calf. He gave it to a young man, who hurried to prepare it. 8 Then Abraham took curds and milk, and the calf that he had prepared, and set them before the men. He served  them as they ate under the tree. 9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he answered. 10 The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 So she laughed to herself: “After I have become shriveled up and my lord is old, will I have delight?” 13 But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ 14 Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.” 15 Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid. But He replied, “No, you did laugh.”

Every pastor has stories they can tell about events when if they didn’t laugh, they’d cry. Many of these seem to stem from baptisms. For example, one pastor was baptizing a large man in a small baptistery. He banged the man’s head against the side of the baptistery, and the man came up out of the water cursing. Another pastor was baptizing a young girl who decided to do a “cannon ball” dive into the baptistery. The choir got baptized that day as well.

Finally, a pastor and a revival speaker did a joint baptism service together. After the baptism, the pastor rushed back to change clothes for the rest of the service. After he got back into the sanctuary, he noticed his feet were hurting. He didn’t realize why until the revival speaker almost fell on the way to the pulpit to preach. The pastor had put on the evangelist’s shoes, which were one-and-a-half size smaller than his own!

In every family, a time will come when tough situations face us. Actually, in every family, many tough times will come, so much that if we didn’t laugh, we’d cry. As we look at our Scripture for today, we find a find a time when Sarah, the wife of Abraham, also laughed. Let’s see what this event may mean to us today. 

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Disbelief:

When we are intimately involved in a situation, we often grasp it well. The details to us are crystal clear and they are very important. The details to us loom as big as a mountain. One thing that pastors and chaplains have learned is that people involved in a tragedy must “tell their story” until they have finished telling it.

The reality here was that Sarah couldn’t have a child. She was too old, and Abraham was too old. It was humanly impossible. 

I remember as a pre-teen working on solving a math word problem in a group work setting that included some girls. My solution had the mother giving birth at age 70, which caused a great deal of derision on the part of the girls. Even in the 21st Century giving birth at that age is unheard of, and Sarah was two decades older than that!

The thing is, Sarah forgot something vital: Nothing is impossible with God! God made the rules by which the world works and, He can also suspend them! As Jeremiah 32:27 tells us,

Look, I am Yahweh, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Fear:

On the other hand, it is possible that Sarah believed God. Maybe she knew God could do impossible. Afterall, this was obviously a family of great faith. 

Maybe she knew exactly what God was going to do and it scared her to death! Giving birth is hard enough for a young woman, but for a woman over 90. . . ?! This is like watching a train wreck about to happen: you’re horrified; you can’t so anything about it, but your eyes are glued to the scene.

We are often that way, too when God asks us to serve Him or when God asks us to witness for Him. Maybe, when God asks us to live for Him, we are just too frightened.

Apparently, Sarah, like we do today, forgot who God is:

• God is the Great Physician.
• God is the Good Shepherd.
• God is the Ultimate Counselor.
• God is the Prince of Peace.

If God wanted Sarah to have a baby, she could have it safely, and without undue difficulty. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:9: 

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Bitterness: 

There is no doubt that Sarah was bitter about her childlessness. She had no child of her own and her plan to get a child by Hagar backfired. She wanted a child so badly she could taste it so maybe she got angry with God!

Sarah as not the only person in the Bible to get angry with God. Jonah did. Job did. He did not curse God, but he was angry. The Children of Israel did on several occasions as Moses led them to Canaan. Even the great prophet Elijah did.

Many of us have also gotten angry with God. We can even see evidence of this in popular culture. For example, in the 1972 disaster movie, “The Poseidon Adventure,” Gene Hackman’s character was a minister who became angry with God because of the deaths of so many victims. 

Like we do from time to time, Sarah forgot some truths that would have helped her with her attitude. She needed to remember that God is good, loving and kind and that God is righteous and just. God never does evil and the evil that does exist is from Satan, and also from our own human sin.

Jesus Himself taught us in John 10:10-11 that:

A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Resistance: 

Maybe Sarah’s laugh was more of a snort. Maybe she thought, “No way Jose!” Maybe she thought, “There’s no way you are going to get me to do that!” Maybe she was looking around to see who else God was talking to.

Again, Sarah is not alone in resisting God: Cain resisted God.  Jonah resisted God. The Rich Young Ruler resisted God.

We also resist God leadership. A pastor I once knew was leading his church to reach out to their community, and to help people find their faith in God through innovative outreach ideas. Things had gotten off to a strong start until the next deacons’ meeting, in which the young pastor was told, “Preacher, if you want to go where no man has gone before, you’re going alone!” By the way, that church is no longer open.

Sarah forgot that she was a part of God’s Plan of Redemption. She was a partner with God, and she was given an opportunity to be an agent of salvation. She was offered a chance to share with God the glory of His work. God, in His grace, has chosen to do His Holy work of salvation through people! The church is not just a civic club; what we do has eternal consequences. 1 Peter 2:5-10 remind us: 

. . . you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it is contained in Scripture: Look! I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame!  7 So honor will come to you who believe, but for the unbelieving, The stone that the builders rejected— this One has become the cornerstone, 8 and a stone to stumble over,  and a rock to trip over. They stumble because they disobey the message; they were destined for this. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Maybe Sarah Laughed out of Joy: 

Maybe Sarah was filled with the joy of what God was about to do. Maybe she was like my wife’s elementary school student who once wrote on his paper, “100 A+, You Go, Billy!” Afterall, God’s glories are so big, our hearts can’t contain them, and we often burst out into joyous songs of praise and adoration. We recently saw how the Psalmist rejoiced because he could worship God in Psalm 42:1-4,

As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?” 4 I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.

Like Sarah, many others in the Bible had reason to celebrate. 

• David danced with joy at God’s victories
• Mary burst out into praise after the angel told her she’d become to mother of the Savior
• Simeon was so moved by seeing the baby Jesus that he cried out to God that he could now die happy  
• The crowds along the road to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday

In fact, we, too. need to get ready to laugh with joy. Revelation 5:13-14 tells us this about Heaven: 

I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them say: Blessing and honor and glory and dominion to the One seated on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever! 14 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Conclusion:

Why are you laughing today? Out of disbelief, or fear, or resentment, or resistance, or joy?

As Our Lord Himself said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear”

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt