Genesis 18:11-15: a reflection

11Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old will I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” 13The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Will I really bear a child when I am old?’ 14Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the set time I will return to you, when the season comes around, and Sarah will have a son.” 15Then Sarah denied it, saying, “I didn’t laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.”

Abraham and Sarah are old, well past the years of having children, and when Sarah overhears the promise that she will bear a son, she laughs to herself at the sheer impossibility of it. Who could blame her? Everything about her body and her age says it cannot happen. But the Lord hears the laugh she thought was hidden and asks the question at the heart of the whole scene: is anything too hard for the Lord?

That question hangs over the passage, and over the whole Bible. Sarah measured the promise by what was naturally possible and found it laughable. God measures it by his own power, for whom the aging of a body is no obstacle. When Sarah, afraid, denies that she laughed, God gently but firmly holds her to the truth, no, you did laugh, not to shame her but to draw her past her doubt to trust the One who keeps impossible promises.

You likely have your own version of Sarah's laugh, a promise or a hope you have quietly written off because it seems impossible now. God's question is for you too: is anything too hard for the Lord? He does not scold honest doubt, but he does invite you past it, to measure his promises by his power rather than by what seems possible to you. Let the God for whom nothing is too hard enlarge your hope beyond the limits of the likely.

Lord, like Sarah I have quietly laughed off hopes that seem impossible now, measuring your promises by what I can imagine rather than by your power. Forgive my small faith, and press your question home to me: is anything too hard for you? Enlarge my hope beyond the limits of the likely, and teach me to trust the God who keeps even impossible promises. Amen.