In Genesis 18: 1 we read, “The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby…”
Later a conversation between them goes like this:
“Where is your wife, Sarah?” they asked him.
“There, in the tent,” he said.
Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”
But he said, “Yes, you did laugh” (Gen 18: 9 – 15).
They say laughter is the best medicine, but Sarah’s response to the Lord in this story is not one of joy or amusement. This is a laugh of disbelief, almost sarcasm, “Oh sure, that at age one hundred, I would enjoy intimacy with my husband, and that things in my very old body might start working again, like they did many moons ago, so that I may bear a child! I’m old enough to be a great, great grandmother!”
What hasn’t hit her yet is that we are talking about Almighty God here. Is anything too hard for the Lord?
I wonder how easily you and I turn to disbelief, even sarcasm.
“Oh right! (some might say) So you expect me to just ‘let go’ and sail along in some bliss-filled imaginary, Christian bubble, forgetting the fact that the money is due tomorrow, and I have zero dollars in my account.”
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
“I have tried all those things you are talking about. They don’t work. Nothing works!”
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
“It’s funny, I used to have faith like you. I prayed all the time. I still believe of course, but in my own way. God helps those who help themselves” Is anything too hard for the Lord?
No, nothing is too hard for the Lord. He can bring new life to a hundred-year-old woman, he can cause that baby to grow and eventually become a father himself. The Lord can form the generations that follow into a bigger and bigger family until they become a nation. He can mould that nation into a people he calls his own and he can birth his own substance as God incarnate, Jesus Christ, His Son right in the heart of that nation and into the middle of history.
And he can cause that Son to do something so unexpected, so profound, so universe changing as to provide salvation and new life through his willing death on the cross and then powerful resurrection from the dead. God can take a hundred-year-old lady and create children for himself so numerous as to be beyond counting.
Is anything too hard for the Lord?