Word of Salvation – Vol. 20 No.07 – November 1973
The Laughter Of God
Advent Sermon by Rev. P. G. Van Dam
SCRIPTURE READINGS: Genesis 17:1-22; 18:9-15 21:1-8
TEXTS: Genesis 17:17; 18:12-15; 21:5,6,
PSALTER HYMNAL: 184; 129 (with law); 491 (with creed);
333:1,2 and 4; 337; 493 (doxology)
Brothers and Sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ,
There are not so many places in the Bible about laughter. Yet we must call it the book of laughter. Why? Because God wants us to laugh. And why should God want us to laugh? Because He Himself laughs the laugh of His victory. Of His victory over our enemy. Yes, over Satan, who is our enemy for in all his lies he wants to bring us to despair and to destroy us. But God laughs for in the end it is He, OUR God, Who is, and Who will prove to be, the Victor.
And God gave us His Word in order that through that Word HIS people should be reminded, time and again, how in the joylessness and in the seeming hopelessness of a life ruled by sin and by the results of sin He came – came in Jesus Christ in order that believing in Him as our Saviour we should have joy again. The joy of a life which knows that it is ruled by Him. The joy of our hope of eternal life. For was not this the message which announced the coming of Jesus Christ: “Fear not for I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord!”?
And so the question to you is this: is it true, then, that this message of joy is the purpose and the meaning of God’s Word for you?
Oh yes, it can be TRUE joy ONLY IF we hear it in the knowledge of the utter hopelessness of a life being ruled by sin, its passions and its sufferings. Only then when we have learned the truth of God’s Word as we have it formulated in Lord’s Day 1 of the Heid. Cat. Only then!
Only if we realize and confess the fallacy and the despair of having laughed at God and His promises; which we do so easily, in unbelief or perhaps ridicule. And then remember that He who laughs last laughs best. That, after all, the reality of our lives is not OUR laughter, but GOD’S laughter in His victory over our sinful lives.
* * * * *
In our texts we read of the laughter of three persons.
Of the laughter of Abraham;
Of the laughter of Sara, his wife; and, finally,
Of the laughter of God.
Most of us know the story. In Genesis 12 we read how God had called Abraham out of his homeland, and with him his wife Sara and his family, He had done this in order that according to his divine purposes Abraham should become the father of all believers, the father of His people. For at the time God calls him He says Abraham: I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you,…. in you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen.12,2,3b), But after some length of time Abraham asks God, reminding Him of His promises: “O Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, for I continue childless;. . . see, Thou hast given me no offspring and a slave born in my house will be my heir” (Gen.15.2,3). In other words, Lord how could Thy promises be true since Thou hast not given me any children of my own; the way it is now it will be a slave, rather than my own children, who will inherit what I have.
Nevertheless, God repeats His promise: “This man shall not be your heir, your own son shall be your heir” (Gen.15,4).
But, still, years pass by and no child is born unto Abraham and Sara, And then we see how in spite of God’s promises, of His repeated assurances, Abraham gives up. How, at long last, his own human considerations triumph over the certainty of God’s promises. Sarah in her old age will not be able to have any children any more. And so she gives Hagar, her handmaid to Abraham. And Hagar bears him Ishmael.
However, after another thirteen years God comes to Abraham for the third time (twenty-four years after His first appearance to him). And again God confirms His promise: “I will make My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly” (Gen.17.7). And God continues: “As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sara shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give you a son also of her, and she shall be a mother of nations; KINGS of people shall be of her.”
In other words: Sara, this name means ‘princess’ for kings of nations shall be of her. That is my purpose with her for the sake of my people. THE KING shall be of her. The first announcement of the coming of THE King of God’s people. The first advent!
The first advent! At the same time it is also the first laughter mentioned in the Bible. For immediately after God had repeated His promise to Abraham and had sealed it unto him in the seal of the covenant we read: “Then Abraham fell on his face, AND LAUGHED, and said to himself, ‘shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sara who is ninety years old bear?. O, that Ishmael might live in Thy sight’ (Gen.17:17,18).
God, how can that be? Don’t you know, God, that that cannot be? Don’t you know God that that is impossible at our old age? To us, who are dead as to our womanhood and manhood. God, don’t you know that that does not make sense? That it is not realistic at all. How could you make us believe this? We have all the evidence against us! Life out of my death. It is impossible; I just cannot believe it,
O no, we have no reason to believe that Abraham’s laughter was the laughter of sarcasm or of ridicule; but – rather – the laughter of bitterness. The laughter in which Abraham reasoned with God: “O, yes, God, I know that Thou art the almighty God. That Thou art MY God also. But that, after all these years of waiting and disappointment in which all our hope is gone because now we are too old in any case; that now Thou art still saying to me that we will have our own child so that our generation will not die out but live, Lord after all that waiting I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE it anymore. When we die our name will die with us. And our hope. Truly, Lord, the hope and expectation and joy have died in us.
Well, don’t we know it; the kind of faith that has no joy and expectation. No, that is not only in the case of sorrow or hardship which may have disappointed us. There is also that kind of life and of faith which knows that God is God; that He is OUR God, too. And, yet, we seem to be living from one day to the next without much difference. The kind of lives in which faith does not mean a great deal anymore. A life and a faith which, for all practical purposes, are dead. Lives in which we do not hear the REAL Christmas message anymore. Or, what is worse, do not really hear the message of Easter anymore. In which these messages just don’t seem to be realistic at all. Not in OUR lives.
There are many people who simply say that a joyful Christendom is not theirs anyway. They won’t even stop anymore to expect joy in their faith. And for that reason do not receive it either! It just would not fit in, in their lives and disappointments and questions.
And then often they take THEIR OWN Ishmael, and place him between God’s promises and themselves. God give me some joy in my life here and now; in my own achievements and possessions and fun and glitter.
An empty faith. No, it is not that it denies God and His love and His promises, but nevertheless it is empty, without comfort, hope, and strength. People who really don’t expect it from God anymore. God did not come when they thought He should have come. With the result: bitterness (consciously or unconsciously).
But God is not finished with Abraham! “Sara, your wife SHALL BEAR you a son INDEED, and you shall call his name Isaac” (Gen.17.19) (We shall consider the meaning of that name later).
No, Abraham, not like that? I don’t want you like that, resigned, joyless, half-hearted. No, Abraham, no compromise, no self-pity. Listen, I am telling you again, it IS true: Sara SHALL bear you a son, INDEED! She WILL; do you hear that, Abraham?
Yes, I want you to laugh, but not the laugh of doubt or bitterness. Instead, the laugh of the joy of my gift. Of my gift to you! Hear that, Abraham? I WILL GIVE YOU LIFE IN YOUR DEATH!
No, my people, not YOUR Ishmael, but MY Isaac, for you. Not your death, and hopelessness and joylessness. Not your ‘what-is- the-sense-of-it-all-anyway?”
Yes, life indeed! Joy indeed! Hope indeed!
In my Isaac.
The joy of a life which is living – which is alive in Jesus Christ.
Not your Ishmael, but MY Son. My Son for you.
“For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given,
and the government will be upon His shoulder,
and His Name will be called:
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa.9.6.)
* * * * *
Then, God comes for the fourth time, now to tell Abraham that His promise is about to be fulfilled. Within a year Sara shall have a son. But at that moment we hear Sara laugh. Stealthily, within herself it says, “After I have grown old and my husband is old shall I have pleasure”. (Gen.18.12).
Sara, too, laughs in unbelief. But her laughter is WORSE!
The kind of words she speaks betray that her laughter is very much the laughter of scorn, of ridicule. Does God think that I still have some pleasure with my husband. God, don’t be silly. Now this is one thing. But in her ridicule she does in fact ridicule God’s purposes with her for the sake of His people; the purposes of which God spoke when He said that kings of nations would come of her. That she was to be the mother of nations. The mother of GOD’S nation and of GOD’S KING. Yes, that is what she did; she simply ridiculed God’s plan with and for His people.
Now we would not dare to laugh aloud when hearing God’s promises in Jesus Christ. His promises in Christ for us. Or, also, the purposes He has in wanting to bring Christ forth into the world through us for the purpose of saving the world.
Nevertheless aren’t we too often inclined in our own thoughts to ridicule God sometimes when we hear of His purposes with us and for us in giving us His Child? The purpose of our salvation, and the purpose of our witness to Him for the salvation of the world? Is not it true that within ourselves we often smile, the smile of ridicule; and think; ‘So what?’ What does this Christ mean to me, anyway? I can’t see that He means much to me. The promises of His benefits, His peace and so on. That is not real in my life; I could not see how. And sometimes we think: it is nonsense. And for me to bring forth Christ into this world? Are you kidding? That is all right for the Sunday and church and catechism and Bible class, but apart from that it is just not the reality of today’s life anymore. Don’t you know?
And so without saying it openly in the church, nevertheless we are determined that that Word of God is not going to make any difference in our lives. We know better, don’t we?
* * * * *
Abraham, he had lost the expectation and the joy of his faith. After all the waiting, the disappointments he just could not believe it anymore that God could or would fulfil His promise. And so his faith had become meaningless.
With Sara things were different; she just ridiculed God, His promises and His plans. They were nonsense to her in the reality of her circumstances (at least in what SHE considered to be that reality, and we often are just like her).
* * * * *
However, we should not think that God would let us get away with our laughter. With our laughter of unbelief, doubt, or of indifference or ridicule.
For God overhears Sara laughing! And He said to Abraham? “Wherefore did Sara laugh?” God apparently takes her attitude rather seriously. He does, for it concerns His own covenant promises. Then we read that Sara tries to deny that she laughed, But she does not get away with it, for God says: “No, but you did laugh!”
No we will not get away with our laughter either? We may be quite sure of that, God will ask us too: “Why did you laugh?” And don’t you deny it!
* * * * *
But the last One to laugh is God!
For in spite of Abraham’s laughter of unbelief, and in spite of Sara’s laughter of ridicule, God does fulfil the promises He had given them.
In His faithfulness He does give Abraham and Sara the Son He had promised them. The son of whom He had said that his name was to be Isaac. And that name Isaac means: ‘He laughs. He, God, God laughs.
God laughs. In spite of our unbelief, in spite of our ridicule, He is Victor. “He Who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision… for I have set My King on Zion, My holy hill” (Ps.2.4,6). Yes, My King, the Christ, He reigns.
The Lord will laugh at all those who have laughed at Him. For His Child, our King shall come with glory, to judge the living and the dead. “And all knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. (Phil.2:10,11).
Yes, but it is true also that we who laughed in ridicule or unbelief alike that we should in the end laugh in joy and new hope and new life – joining God in the laughter of the gift and of the victory of His Son. His gift and His victory favour salvation, to the glory of His Name.
As Sara did! For after she had received Isaac she said: “God has made me to laugh so that all that hear will laugh with me” (Gen.21.5,6). No, not now the laughter of ridicule – but we must believe – the laughter of rejoicing in God’s gift.
And she said: “Who would have said to Abraham that Sara would nurse children; yet, I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Gen.21.7). These words are the words of confession of Sara’s unbelief, and at the same time of the expression of the joy of the fulfilment of God’s promises.
And of Abraham we read that he made a great feast! (Gen.21.8).
* * * * *
Unbelief and ridicule. They are so close at our hearts and minds.
But God will fulfil His promises. His Son did come. In spite of my unbelief and my ridicule. To save me from the despair of unbelief and ridicule. Yes, for that is what they are: despair and death.
But you know this same Jesus Christ will come again. We better believe this, and don’t make fun of it. For in that day we may expect God to ask us: “WHY did YOU laugh?”
Amen.