Advent: joY jOY yoj jOy JOY
Photo by Kevin Cochran
Every year at Christmastime we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We gather to share glad tidings of great joy because Christ the Savior has finally arrived—born of a virgin in a barn in the backwater town of Bethlehem.
The storyline of Scripture includes numerous similar stories of women who give birth to sons—several are older like Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who gives birth to John in the months before Jesus’ birth, and others are younger like Mary whose unique and extraordinary experience we contemplate at Christmastime.
God often intervenes in ways that seem utterly impossible just in the nick of time. God is the Creator who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.
In this post, under the banner of joY jOY yoj JOY jOY we consider Abraham and Sarah’s rather intimate and tumultuous story of conception. We meet them in the Old Testament book of Genesis at a pivotal moment—their first encounter with God, who issues an important directive and an astonishing promise. Abraham’s heirs will outnumber the stars in the sky.
Remember this tiny detail. Sarah is barren.
Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen 11: 30; 12:1–3).
Abraham, a vigorous seventy-five-year-old, leads his entourage in the direction of Canaan and eventually to a place called Shechem. Then God appears to him a second time at the oak of Moreh and gifts him and his offspring the land on which he stands. Abraham responds with worship.
Sarah remains barren.
Fifteen years turns into twentyish and Sarah, out of desperation and despite God’s promise, instructs Abraham to take Hagar, her Egyptian servant as a wife, who in due time conceives. Sarah, rather than finding peace in this once desired outcome, is driven by a jealous rage and kicks Hagar out into the wilderness.
Abraham is eighty-eight years old when Hagar gives birth to Ishmael … and Sarah remains barren.
Twenty-five years come and go. God appears to Abraham again and restates the promise. You will indeed, within the year, have a son. Abraham, on the cusp of his 100th birthday, falls on his face and laughs! “You have got to be kidding me.” We can almost hear his hilarity.
The child’s name, God announces, will be Issac.
Then Sarah laughs. After I am worn out, and my lord is as good as dead, shall I have pleasure? Sure enough, and not a minute too soon, Sarah gives birth to their very own son, Isaac.
Isaac’s name means laughter.
True Joy
Abraham and Sarah’s story reminds us that a life of faith often provokes incredulity. Why on earth did God wait until there was absolutely no way, from a biological point of view, that Sarah could possibly conceive naturally? Why wait until the suggestion becomes, well, laughable?
Perhaps, perhaps, their story can prepare us for the impossible-from-a-human-point-of-view-story of the birth of Jesus—God’s very own Son.
Abraham and Sarah’s example is neither perfect nor heroic, but it is very human. Their faith fraught with calamity, cowardice, cruelty, drama, doubt, and jealousy in many ways mirrors our own.
Sarah eventually banished Hagar into the wilderness for good because her son Ishmael laughed at Isaac (Gen 21:1–21). Oh, the irony!
This earthy, messy drama likewise reminds us that God’s promises are not limited to a privileged few. God saw Hagar and heard her cries. He instructs her to name her son Ishmael, which means, just in case she forgets, God hears.
Abraham and Sarah’s story includes their very own son Isaac and anticipates the birth of Jesus who descends from the line of Abraham, which affirms that he is indeed God’s anointed, the Savior of the world (Matt 1:1–17).
The true story of the whole world—indeed all of history—is infused with the fact of Jesus who is the clue to human history.
This is our God who infuses the wild, weary, worn-out world with joY jOY yoj JOY and makes the impossible possible.
This is the God we believe in, this is the God who creates and loves, puzzles and enrages, sees and hears us still today. This is the God who remains true to his promise to Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Hagar, to you, and to me.
(Abraham and Sarah’s story is found in the Bible, Genesis 11:31-22:19.)
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