In this season of Lent, we, as covenant people, stop and take a good hard look at our identity, at the way our relationship with God is lived out in our lives. The promise given Abraham was, when you think about it, at least far-fetched and on some level downright ludicrous. But then, most of God’s promises are. God told Abraham that he was to be ”the father of a host of nations” (Gen. 17:5). Even though they were old, presumably Sarah was post-menopausal, they were to have a child. What was their reaction?
Abraham fell down laughing. And when he told Sarah, she did the same. Was it nervousness, disbelief, or something else that brought laughter? We in our 21st century boxes probably think it a little irreverent. After all, would you dare laugh at God? Well, good grief, don’t you think God is laughing at us sometimes? Perhaps laughter is what brings perspective. It brings humility; it brings a different way of looking at oneself. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “Humor is the beginning of faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.”
Now we read this Sunday from the 22nd chapter of Genesis that God tested Abraham by asking him to offer his only son Isaac as an “holocaust” on Mt. Moriah. I imagine there was no laughter this time. There may have been a nervous guffaw—that laughter that accompanies confusion or disbelief at what one is hearing or seeing. Guffaw or no, Abraham believed and obeyed. We know the end of the story: God delivered Abraham’s only son, Isaac, by providing a ram caught by its horns in the thicket.
Abraham laughed. Sarah laughed. And I’m betting God laughed. (You can just imagine the inside joke between the three: “This is going to be good. No one will ever believe this could happen.”) Maybe laughter is our grace-filled way of getting out of our self and realizing that, as ludicrous and unbelievable as it may be, God’s promise holds. Maybe it’s our way of admitting once and for all that we don’t have it all figured out, that, in all honesty, we don’t even have ourselves figured out, that there’s a whole new identity just waiting for us to claim.
In this Season of Lent, we are called to get out of our self, to open ourselves to possibilities and ways of being that we cannot even fathom. Go ahead and laugh. It is only the beginning. The promise holds. There is nothing left to do but to obey and follow. God has provided for us, this time not a ram of sacrifice, but His Only Begotten Son.
Prayerfully, Father Mike