God's Laughter: A sermon on the birth of Isaac

What a wonderful story for Father’s Day! Well, I think it is anyway. I think, in fact, it’s a comedy. Not a comedy in the sense that the movies of Adam Sandler are comedies—that probably tells you more about my Netflix habits that I should be comfortable with. I mean, the Abraham story is not a comedy in the sense of prat falls, corny jokes and canned laughter. 

It is rather a comedy in the classic sense of the word—it is a story about something that is too good to be true. A story about something absurd and wonderful and impossible that comes to pass. And it is a story not in the make believe world of once upon a time, but one that that takes place in our world. By the oaks of Mamre. 

How is it a comedy? We need to work a little to get there. Here's the backstory.

This is not the first time that God has spoken to Abraham. That takes place decades earlier, some five chapters before in Genesis chapter 12. There, God commands Abram (for that was his name) to leave his home and go to a new land. Then, God makes Abram a threefold promise: I will give you descendants; I will give them a land; in doing so, I will bless the whole world through you.  

But there’s a problem: Abram and Sarai have no children.

Years pass—years of misadventure, for Abram seems to have a knack for finding trouble. But God speaks to Abram again. He reminds Abram of the promise: I will give you descendants! And Abram reminds God of the problem.

Hang on, he says to God. I have no heir! My heir is my servant Eliezer of Damascus. What do you mean descendants?

God, however, does not explain. He merely doubles-down on the promise. One of your flesh and blood will be your heir. And I will make your descendants as numerous as the sands of the seashore.  

And then comes one of the best verses in the whole Bible. Do you know it? “And Abram believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness.” Abram, in other words, trusted that God would keep his promise. And God became Abram’s friend. He regarded him as right before him. 

But there’s still the problem: Abram and Sarai still have no children. 

More years pass. This time decades. Abram is 86. God is silent. There’s still no heir.

Now, Sarai decides that she will orchestrate the fulfilment of the promise. She gives her personal servant Hagar to Abram. Hagar has a son, Ishmael. Now the problem is solved. The wrinkle is ironed out. God’s promise is fulfilled because God helps those who help themselves.

There is no indication from God one way or the other. 

More years pass. This time 13. Abram is 99. God speaks to clarify the situation. Ishmael will not be your heir, God says. I will look after him. He will become great. But your heir will come from the womb of Sarai. God then changes their names—Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai, Sarah.  

Now, how many times has God promised? 3 times. Do Abraham and Sarah have any children? No. And by now, Abraham is 99 and Sarah is 89. It is impossible. 

Only now do we come to the Old Testament lesson for today.  

Another year is gone. Now 100, Abraham is sitting in the shade of his tent in the heat of the day at the oak trees at Mamre. Three men approach. How narrator knows, I don’t know. But the narrator of the story tells us that the three men, or one of the three men—the text itself is unclear—is the LORD—he uses God’s proper name: I am who I am. 

There is something significant going on in that identification. In the Bible, God never comes “unclothed.” He comes “as” something else. He comes clothed in his own creation. Remember the Moses story—the voice of God is in the fire that does not burn up the bush. Remember the Exodus story—God leads and protects the people as a fiery cloud at night and a billowy cloud by day. Just so in the Abraham story, too. God has come to Abraham as a voice. He has come to him as a smoking fire pot floating in the air. And now, God comes once again as three men. 

Robed in his creation, however, God comes as the LORD. The one who is, who will be who he is, who is absolutely and utterly beyond our control, but who, in his free and sovereign love for us comes clothed in means and speaking words that we understand. That. Is. Grace. God comes to us in a way that does not annihilate us, but in a way that saves. God comes to us in a way that we can come to know him. To hear his promises. To trust in those promises. And to credit that trust to us as righteousness. He comes to us to become our friend.

So, as three men, the LORD comes to Abraham. Now remember. Abraham is 100. Sarah is 90. And the LORD says, “I will come back in a year and you will have a son.” Sarah in the tent begins to laugh. After all, our text says, she had ceased to be after the manner of women. When reflecting on this story centuries later, St. Paul will add that Abraham’s body, too, was as good as dead. The writer of Genesis and St. Paul both have alluded to physical realities of age. What has been said is impossible! Not only impossible, but laughably impossible!

“Shall I have a son now that I am old?” But God answers Sarah’s laughter with a question of his own: “Is anything to wonderful for the Lord?” 

A year passes and Sarah gives birth. And Sarah laughs and laughs. And Abraham laughs and laughs. And they name the son Isaac—laughter! After all, this is too good to be true. It is absurd. And it is wonderful. And it has come to pass, not in a fairytale world of make believe, but in our world.   

One last point. Eight days after Isaac is born, Abraham obeys the commandment of God and circumcises his son. He cuts the foreskin from Isaac's penis. This is no trifling detail to pass over for the sake of sensitivities. In cultures where male circumcision is practiced, it is usually an adolescent ritual. It is about growing into manhood by showing that thet young man is now ready to beget children. To begin the next generation. To control the future. 

Abraham, however, is circumcised when he is 80 years; Isaac, when he is 8 days. They are circumcised when they have no control over anything. They are circumcised precisely to remind them that they CANNOT fulfil the promise. They are circumcised to remind them that God made a promise and God, gloriously, impossibly, comedically, kept it. Is anything too wonderful for the LORD? And Abraham and Sarah and Isaac laugh and with one voice, tell us, no. 

That, my dear friends, is a comedy.  

It is a comedy which reaches through the centuries to touch our lives and fill them with holy laughter.

Think about the words of not an old woman, but now a young one. “How can this be since I know not a man?” In an echo that must be deliberate, the angel Gabriel says to the Blessed Virgin, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

And then, the one son of Abraham is conceived who is God come clothed in the flesh of his people. Not a disembodied voice; not a fire nor a cloud; not a smoking fire pot or three men. But one man. God clothed in humanity so that Jew and Gentile can hear the promises of God from God’s own human lips and see the covenant-promises of God cut into God’s own human body on the cross. A God who comes to be known, to love, to save, even at the laying down of his own life. 

And the Gospel comedy comes to us, too. Abraham believed that God would give him a son. Impossible. But he trusted the God of the promise and God credited it to him as righteousness. Christians profess in their baptism their trust in a God who can and did raise his own Son from the dead. Impossible, say some. Absurd, say others. But the baptized trust that it’s true, and God credits that trust to them—to us!—as righteousness.  

And we, children of Abraham, brothers and sisters of Jesus, sons and daughters of God laugh. Because this is the very best impossible, absurd, and true comedy ever written. And it comes from the heart of God.