Genesis 21.1-7

Have you embraced the “letdown?”  I’m sure you have, because I think the “letdown” is one of the most common of all human experiences.

It happens in many aspects of life.  That high school crush was all you could ever ask for, but quickly let you down when he dumped you for your best friend.   The salesman made that used car sound like the world’s greatest automobile, but a few months later, it was in the shop and you were letdown.  That new dress was perfect in the fitting room, but a letdown in your bedroom mirror.

These are somewhat silly examples, but you know the serious letdowns that have made you hopeless.  Your career isn’t what you pictured, your family is a wreck, or your retirement fund is smaller than you had hoped.

It doesn’t take long to embrace letdowns as part of life, and navigate this word hopelessly.  And this is how a lot of us view God and his promises.  Maybe you’ve thought he is just another letdown that some people foolishly cling to for a little while.  

Today’s passage shows us that God’s promises are not mere band aids for a hopeless world; they are the hope of the world.

Read Genesis 21:1-7

 21 Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. ² Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. ³ Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. ⁴ When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. ⁵ Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 

⁶ Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” ⁷ And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

This whole story of Abraham has had the potential to be a colossal letdown.  We have a 100 year old man with the name “father of multitudes” wandering around with a barren wife and a batch of promises from God who said he would be a great nation that blessed the world (Gen 12:1-3, 13:15-17, 15:4, 17:7).  Even his wife, Sarah, found this idea funny and maybe ridiculous (Gen 18:10-12).  

Knowing this story, you might expect a little more hoopla about this birth, but I think it is short so we don’t miss this point:  God came through on his promises.  He wasn’t about to let them down.  There is no need for more of a story because we should know that this is what God would do.

Look at verses 1-2 again:  Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.    ² Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.

Sarah knew this too so God turned her laughter of doubt to laughter of joy (vs. 6).  She would never forget it  as she and Abraham named this son from God, Isaac, which means “laughter.”  I like to picture Sarah and Abraham watching Isaac playing with the neighbors from the kitchen window and laughing because they know that God’s faithfulness gave them hope in the midst of a world of letdowns.

This hope is available to us today too.  Through this son, God brought about his son, Jesus.  His faithfulness continues and comes to us in a world of letdowns as a thread of hope, hope that there is more than these letdowns we experience day to day, hope that this journey is heading somewhere or more specifically, to someone.  You might laugh at that thought now, but all it takes is some trust and faith in God to find a chuckle of joy.

This story of the birth of Isaac is a call for us today to follow Jesus and live by the promises God has given us.  It is a call to live faithfully because we know the one who is faithful.  He calls us to big and even impossible things.  But we live by what he says even when it doesn’t always quite make sense because we know that he will never let us down.  Ever.

Jeremy Hyde