The Last
Laugh
Romans 5: 1-8; Genesis 18: 1-15; 21: 1-7
FPC;
Laughter is today’s topic, or at least a subtopic, so let me begin with a
statement by Bob Hope.
Bob Hope said, “Whenever I play golf with Gerald Ford, I usually try to make it
a foursome-the President, myself, a paramedic, and a faith healer.”
George Burns once quipped, “A good sermon should have a good beginning and a
good ending, and they should be as close together as possible.”
There is the laughter that comes in response to a funny story.
And, there is the laughter of Sarah.
Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent during the hottest part of the
day when he is visited by three beings.
Perhaps the heat has gotten the best of him because he is unable to
identify the three visitors as divine messengers, one of which is the Lord
himself. It is good that Abraham is
sitting when the messengers say to him, “Your wife, Sarah, is going to have a
son”. She is beyond childbearing
years. It is humanly impossible for her to have a child.
Sarah’s barren condition symbolizes hopelessness. As she overhears the
message that she is going to have a son, Sarah laughs.
The laughter of
Sarah is the laughter of disbelief.
In response,
the Lord asks Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh?”
“Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”
If the answer
is yes, some things are too wonderful for the Lord, then God is not sovereign
and all-powerful. If the answer is yes, then Abraham and Sarah and every Abraham
and Sarah through the ages have control over God.
If the answer is yes, then the resistant laughter of disbelief determines
whether God will be God.
If, on the
other hand, the answer is no, nothing is impossible with God, then we allow God
to be God. If the answer is no, then
we are able to entrust to God’s providential care the concerns of the world,
even the ones that seem to be hopeless.
Sarah thought “yes, some
things are impossible, some things are too wonderful for the Lord.”
She laughed the laughter of disbelief.
But, her laughter is replaced by a different kind of laughter when the Lord
fulfills his promise. Her disbelief cannot alter the grace of God.
With the birth of Isaac, Abraham and Sarah have the son they never
thought possible and Sarah laughs the laughter of joy.
The young woman was at the end of her line.
She had been kicked out of the home.
Her boyfriend had abused her.
She had abused alcohol. She was in a
program once, but dropped out. She
comes to the young man as a homeless, hopeless person.
For an hour or more, she and the young man talk.
She says to him: “I probably shouldn’t have come to you.
I’m embarrassed. I don’t know
what to say.”
“Why don’t you begin by telling me about yourself”, he says to her.
He listens as she shares with him the sordid details of her past. “Let me see
what I can do to help”, the young man tells her.
He calls a counselor at HAVEN, “Helping Abuse and Violence End Now”.
“They’ll help you,” the
young man informs the woman.
“They’ll provide a place for you to spend the night, but they want you to agree
to talk to one of their counselors.”
Upon hearing this news, she
laughs, not a robust, thigh slapping kind of laughter, but the laughter of
disbelief. “I can’t believe you
would help me. I don’t deserve
this.”
He and his family drive her to the hotel room provided by HAVEN, a place where
she can spend the night.
With keys in hand, she begins to walk towards her room.
The young man says to her: “This is the beginning of a new life for you.”
She laughs again, not a thigh slapping kind of laughter and not the laughter of
disbelief. This time her laughter is
the result of joy, the joy of one who has been touched by grace.
That should be always the last laugh, the joyous laughter of one who have
been given a new start.
The key elements of the story sound familiar: fallen, sinful, without hope.
Her story is our story.
“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” The Apostle Paul’s words serve
as a reminder that the laughter of skepticism and disbelief cannot plug the flow
of God’s grace into our lives.
Is anything too wonderful for God?
As an
institution redeemed by God’s grace, one of the most important responsibilities
of the church is to help the world capture a sense of hope.
It is the church’s role to help the world envision a future orchestrated
by God, to help the world arrive at the conclusion that what seems lost can be
found, what seems dying can be given life, what seems impossible can be achieved
through God’s sovereignty and grace.
Is anything
impossible? Is anything too wonderful for
God?
I invite to
think for just a few minutes about circumstances in the world that seem devoid
of hope and barren, circumstances that cause you to disbelieve that things can
be better. Are there circumstances
in your own life that seem empty of hope, that cause you to laugh the laughter
of disbelief that things are going to be any better?
Now imagine the
Lord visiting you in those places of life, coming and pouring his love into
life’s empty places, causing your heart to stir with hope. Imagine the Lord as
One who makes a way out of no way, who creates new possibilities and new life,
for you, your family, and your friends.
Sarah laughed
the laughter of disbelief. But then
Isaac was born. Her last laugh was
one of indescribable joy. May it be
so for you and me!