Sermon Preached by The Rev. Lance Wallace
According to the dictionary a hero is a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for brave deeds and noble qualities. We admire heroes. We want to be like them. Typically movies are around heroic figures that through some act of bravery and self-sacrifice save the day or the city or the country, or the world. Or they may overcome some big obstacle and achieve something great.
Frequently we think of soldiers, or policeman, or fireman as heroes for bravery and for self-sacrifice. Sometimes we think of people like Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King as heroes because they stood for noble causes and were martyred for those causes. In the Bible there are different types of heroes and we learn of one in today’s reading from Genesis.
The Genesis reading tells the story of the occasion when the Lord visits Abraham and Sarah at the Oaks of Mamre to tell them that in about a year Sarah will have a child. That’s pretty exciting news! What is Sarah’s response to this announcement? Did she drop down to her knees in gratitude and thanksgiving? Does she begin to weep with joy? No, Sarah laughed. She laughed at this announcement. Before we question her for laughing, we need to understand her situation a bit. She actually had good reason to laugh and to doubt. She was ninety years old at the time—now granted, she was a young ninety year old and looked twenty or thirty years younger than she was. And on top of that she was a Sophia Loren of her time, a beautiful, beautiful woman. But still, she was ninety. And in case we still don’t get it, the Bible goes on to say the she was past the way with women, in other words, she had already gone through menopause. Her body was not physically capable of having a baby anymore. That is one reason why she laughed.
We need to read between the lines to see a bit deeper. You see, Sarah was barren; she had been unable to get pregnant and have children. In a society where a woman’s worth was measured in how many children she bore, Sarah was not worth very much. Only a woman, who has wanted to be pregnant and not been able to get pregnant, can truly understand this passage. Only a woman like that can truly understand Sarah’s feelings here. We first read of Sarah in Genesis chapter 11 and there are two things noted about her. First that Abraham took her as his wife and then several verses later that she was barren. We don’t know the age of either Abraham or Sarah at the time of their marriage. But we know that it would have been desired and expected for Sarah to have gotten pregnant right away. Not only was it desired and expected; it was assumed.
We men cannot relate, but imagine every month there is the hope that, “Oh, this month I am pregnant.” Every month, month after month, and slowly, year after year, this goes on. Probably by the time she is in her 50’s she has given up or at least would like to have given up-but one really cannot give up because the cycle always goes on and whether one wishes it or not, one hopes.
Then, God tells Abraham her husband that he will be the father of a great nation. Now the hope starts up again but it is a hope based upon faith. They move down to Canaan. Every month Abraham looks expectantly at Sarah. Every month they hope; every month they are disappointed. Months go by; years go by; menopause comes and goes; and guess what? For Sarah, her faith has not just flickered, it is dead. Then the Lord tells them again here in this passage, “About this time next year Sarah is going to have a son.” What does Sarah do? She laughs. It wasn’t the kind of laugh that one has after hearing a very funny joke. It is a laugh of cynicism. It is a laugh of disbelief. She doesn’t do it loudly; she does it to herself. But notice, the Lord knows. The Bible says that the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?” Sarah could have said, “I have been disappointed too many times. You don’t understand, Lord, I am just not willing to hope again, I cannot believe anymore. I am not willing to be disappointed again.”
But she doesn’t, she says, “I didn’t laugh.” The Lord says, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord, that is to say, is anything too hard for God to do? Sarah will have a son and yes, Sarah, you did laugh.”
So what happens? We know that Sarah does indeed have Isaac just as the Lord said she would. In the words of Paul Harvey, “What is the rest of the story?” We actually need to jump to Hebrews chapter 11 to find out. In chapter 11:11, we read that “by faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” Sarah received power to conceive Isaac through faith. We know that as of Genesis 18 she didn’t have the faith. So what happens between the time Sarah laughed and the time Sarah conceived? How did Sarah come to have faith in the Lord?
We need to understand about faith. Where does faith come from anyway? Is faith a kind of strong wishful thinking? No, it is not. In the book of Romans chapter 10, St. Paul tells us that faith comes by hearing the word of God. After the Lord left them at the Oaks of Mamre, Sarah thought about what the Lord had said to her, “Is anything indeed too wonderful for the Lord?” She, like Mary, pondered these things in her heart. Then she decided that no, there is nothing too hard for the Lord to be able to do. So she believed that God would help her conceive a child. She had faith. She believed the Lord’s word.
Hebrews chapter 11 has been called the chapter of the heroes of faith. The people listed are people like Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Barak, David and Sarah. So why is Sarah in there? She didn’t kill any giants like David did. She didn’t part the Red Sea like Moses. She didn’t lead armies into battle and win great victories like Barak and Gideon. But look at her faith! What is so touching about her story is that she is very much like us. Our faith tends to ebb and flow doesn’t it? We tend to start off great, but then we too get discouraged. When Sarah first heard God’s promise to Abraham she believed. But then over time, her faith faltered. There are times when we really believe in God and trust him. Then there are times when it becomes very difficult to trust Him; particularly when a hard time lasts for a long time. It is all too easy to become cynical and unbelieving like Sarah.
But we can learn from Sarah. What refreshed her faith? She had to look at the Lord and what his promise to her was. In Hebrews 13: 5 and 6, God’s Word tells “He will never leave or forsake us so we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear.” We each of us have gone through, or are going through or will go through difficult times. So in our troubles and times of discouragement, let us turn to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Let us read His words and ponder them in our hearts and let us by faith apply his words to our lives. And in so doing, we will be like Sarah, a hero of faith.