The Last Laugh

Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born, and Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. Now everyone will laugh with me.” Genesis 21:5,6a

Our daughter Sarah was unexpected. We have two sons about three and a half years apart. We were happy with our two boys and had decided we were finished having children. So, with Michael starting his teens and Jonathan just turning 10 we had no thoughts about more children.

But, God is full of surprises. We were using birth control, actively trying not to get pregnant. I had just returned from a Minister’s conference and Patti was catching me up on church happenings while I had been gone. “So and so is in the hospital, your brother called, and the board meeting is still on schedule.”

It was late, about 11 p.m. and we were both lying in bed. I was happy for the update but ready to sleep after over five hours of traveling. After a short pause she said, “And, I’m pregnant.” I laughed. Seriously, I laughed.

Pastoring has its usual stresses since people are its primary product. Nothing is more unpredictable than getting 100 people together weekly, various other times, and trying to make some semblance of order out of the resulting relationships. We were at a particularly high stress period when I had left for the conference.

So, I laughed when Patti said, “I’m pregnant.” I thought she was just being silly, trying to humor me after just arriving home. “No,” she said. “I’m pregnant.” I laughed again. Seriously, I laughed again.

She finally said, “Honey, I went to the doctor today. I’m pregnant.” I didn’t laugh. But I didn’t cry either. After the shortest micro-second of silence I asked, “Why did you wait till the last to tell me you were pregnant.”

“Because I thought you would be upset,” she said. “With all the other stress we’ve been under I thought this might be really tough.”

I said, “Are you kidding? Yes, we weren’t expecting another child. And the stresses have been extremely heavy recently. But, this baby is something God has done. He is giving us another child, how could I be upset about that?”

I know I’m not the only one in the world to have an unexpected pregnancy a decade after your last child. But it felt like it! I told everyone. I mean everyone! And, I wanted a girl more than I could say. I loved my boys. There is nothing like a dad and two boys roughhousing together. But, now that there was a third coming along, I really hoped it would be a girl.

But, unlike most modern pregnancies, we were not to know the baby’s sex until the birth. We had an ultrasound which was inconclusive. Insurance would not pay for any more ultrasounds and we just didn’t have the money to have a second one just to discover the baby’s sex. So, we waited.

And, 9 a.m., June 15, 1993, Sarah Rochelle Phillips arrived. We had a girl. We had a surprise. Not a mistake, a surprise! She, at 17 and just months from graduating High School is still the apple of my eye.

Now, Isaac’s mother, Sarah, also laughed. I have just the slightest understanding, the tiniest inclination about her humor. She and her husband Abraham were over 100 years old! This wasn’t just an unplanned child because family planning had failed. This was a child born out of impossibility!

How Sarah laughed! So deeply, so full-throated that she said that God made her laugh, and that “everyone will laugh with me.” God had promised a son to Abraham and Sarah years before. When the final announcement came, they both were well beyond the age of bearing. Sarah laughed then, as well. But it was the sort of laughter one gives a fool saying something completely outrageous.

“Ha Ha Ha, a baby at our age, that’s a good one, God!”

Now, the laughter is pure, unbridled joy at the type of surprise God likes to bring to us if we only pay attention. Hang around the God of the Bible long enough and He’s bound to trip up your preconceptions now and then. “Babies are not born to centenarians.” And God shows He’s up to the challenge.

Don’t discount the joyous abandon God has in surprising those He loves; even when they laugh in His face. To God, a promise is a promise. God promised an heir to Abraham and Sarah, Sarah laughed, God came through anyway!

We would think it is God who ought to have the “last laugh”. But, He is not like us. He doesn’t need to feel vindicated. So, Sarah gets the last laugh. I know what you’re thinking, God should be more dignified than all that. He shouldn’t let people get away with laughing at Him.

They won’t. But Sarah didn’t laugh out of mockery. She laughed because what God promised sounded so ludicrous, so utterly outrageous that laughter was the natural response. And, to those who laugh, God will always offer the proof of His promise first. Judgment is God’s last resort.

The cross is the perfect example of God’s outrageous promises. “I will take away all your sins, and you can live before me with a completely free conscience. You can live with the confidence that I no longer see any of your sins or failures.”

“Really, God? I’m sorry, but I just have to laugh. No one has ever completely let me off the hook. Though the price I had to pay may have been discounted because I fessed up or because the person I offended took pity on me, there has always been some sort of price.”

And then: the cross. “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Taking it all in, breathing the finally free air of forgiveness, God does not mind one wit if we laugh. “God has made me laugh, and others will laugh with me.”

Go ahead, laugh at the ludicrous, outrageous, unbelievable grace of a holy God. Laugh at the God who enables 100 year old couples to have a child and people of all ages to be born brand new through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.