Sarah and Hope

by: Verlyn Verbrugge

Hope drives the human soul. “I hope I find a decent job.” “I hope I get married someday.” But unfulfilled hopes depress the human soul. And Sarah lost hope that she would ever be a mother.

Sarah’s life hadn’t been easy. In order for the promises spoken to Abraham to be fulfilled, she had to leave her family and everything familiar behind. She had been promised a family and all she had received were the signs of old age. Wouldn’t you laugh if someone told you that at age 90, you would give birth to your firstborn (Gen. 18:12-15)? What’s more, her husband Abraham, at 100, was as good as dead himself (Rom. 4:19).

But God always fulfills his promises, even when the odds against us are laughable. And when Isaac (whose name means “laughter”) was born, Sarah laughed: at herself, at Isaac, at the absurd way God can work. God had performed a miracle; he had raised her dead womb to life.

Centuries later, on a dark Friday, Jesus’ disciples lost hope that he was the Messiah (Luke 24:21). But God raised him from the dead on Easter Sunday, and his followers laughed with “great joy” (Matt. 28:8). That’s what the Christian faith is all about: a God who works in hopeless situations in such amazing ways that our only response is to laugh with joy.