The Lord keeps a promise today, and it's interesting to note that although the promise was made directly to Abraham and not to Sarah, it is for Sarah that the Bible says the Lord does what He has promised.
"Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him." (Genesis 21:1-2) After what happened in Chapter 20, it's about time somebody was gracious to Sarah! Her husband failed to keep his vow to protect her and provide for her every day of his life, instead lying about her relationship to him and causing her to be taken into the harem of the king of Gerar. Abraham has let Sarah down twice now in the same way, and both times the Lord had to step in and rescue her. It's only because of the Lord's protection that Pharaoh of Egypt (Genesis 12) did not officially make her his wife and sleep with her, and that the King of Gerar (Chapter 21) was kept too busy to make the marriage official and consummate it. Once a woman went into a man's harem, she remained there for the rest of her life whether or not he ever got around to actually marrying her and whether or not he ever looked at her again. Although Sarah would have lived in luxury, she would never again have been a free woman, and she'd have basically lived in captivity until the death of the king, at which time his heir would decide what happened to the harem. The heir could take the harem for himself as his own wives or he could give the harem to his friends or to high-ranking officials in his country. Women in a harem had no rights and weren't really any better off than slaves, with the exception of having gourmet foods and fine clothes and opulent surroundings. Imagine how Sarah must have felt on both those occasions when her husband let her down and allowed her to be kept in another man's household.
I think the wording of verse 1 is deliberate. The Lord "was gracious to Sarah" and the Lord did for Sarah "what He had promised". Ah, here is Someone who keeps His promises! Many a woman has been let down by a man who hasn't kept his marriage vows or who hasn't been a good provider or who hasn't protected his wife from things he could have kept her from having to endure. But the Lord never fails to keep a vow or fulfill a promise! We can count on Him when we can't count on anyone else. I've had a lot of people break promises to me during my lifetime, haven't you? It's hurtful and disappointing. It damages our trust in our fellow man, but we don't have to let it damage our trust in the Lord. We can't judge Him by what human beings have done to us. Our God is a promise keeper.
"Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him." (Genesis 21:3) The name "Isaac" means laughter. Abraham laughed in delight and wonder when the Lord promised him a son. Sarah laughed in bitterness and scorn when she overheard the visitors to their home (two angels and the Lord) repeating this promise to Abraham. They each had their own reasons for reacting the way they did. Abraham found the news almost too good to be true, so he laughed in surprised delight. Sarah, after a lifetime of disappointments and of being pitied and talked about, felt like the visitors were making fun of her. She laughed in an angry, scornful way. But this promised son, who has at last appeared, will give them a reason to laugh together with joy. And I don't know if this is so, but maybe the Lord fulfilled the promise at precisely this time in order to mend any rifts in their marriage. The Lord always knew Abraham would let Sarah down twice. The Lord knows everything we will ever do and I believe He plans accordingly. The promised son is going to give them a reason to rejoice together while they raise him, and maybe this is exactly what they needed at this moment in time to allow their marriage to feel fresh and restored.
"When his son was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him." (Genesis 21:4) The Lord gave this command in Chapter 17, when He told Abraham that circumcision would be the sign of the covenant He was making with Abraham and Abraham's descendants.
"Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him." (Genesis 21:5) It has been twenty-five years since God first made the promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah. In our day, in what my church pastor refers to as a "drive-thru culture", we are not used to having to wait very long for anything. We want what we want and we want it now. Even the two-day shipping on our Amazon Prime seems slow to us. We'd love to be able to place an order on the internet and have the delivery person ring our doorbell immediately afterward. We want to pray to the Lord for something and have Him fix our problem right then and there. But God doesn't always operate that way. Yes, I've had him answer prayers while I was still in the middle of praying them. But there have been other times when I've had to wait months or years before situations were resolved. It's hard for us to wait, especially in an era when we're used to instant gratification. It's easy for us to become discouraged or to want to take matters into our own hands and obtain the desires of our hearts in the wrong way. We need to develop more patience by believing that God is going to do what He says He's going to do. We need to learn to wait for Him to do it in the right way and at the right time.
"Sarah said, 'God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.' And she added, 'Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.'" (Genesis 21:6-7) Bless her heart! I'm so happy for her! All her married life she's endured the pitying glances of other women who had no trouble bearing children. In her culture it was a shame for a woman not to be blessed with children. In her culture it was considered the highest calling for a woman to be the mother of sons. She knows people have talked about her and have speculated whether she's a sinner whom God has punished with barrenness. She knows Abraham's friends have shaken their heads and thought, "Poor Abraham! He's been saddled with an infertile wife while our wives have provided us with many sons to carry on our name." Now she laughs not only with joy, but I think also with relief that at last her virtue has been vindicated by the Lord.
She says something like, "The Lord has made certain no one will ever look down on me again! My friends and neighbors bore children in their youth. There's nothing miraculous about a fertile man and a fertile woman producing a child together; it happens every day. But my son was given to me at the age of ninety by a miracle from God. No one can possibly doubt that. Does the Lord do miracles for sinners living in rebellion against Him? No, I don't think He does. Everyone who talked behind my back saying I was being punished for living in disobedience to my God will have to eat their words. All the moms who felt sorry for my barren state will now declare me blessed above all women. All the dads who pitied my husband for marrying a woman who couldn't give him a son will be clapping him on the back and congratulating him for choosing a woman the Lord saw fit to honor with a miracle in her old age. I know people have laughed at me behind my back, but who's laughing now? I am, that's who! I'm laughing in happiness! I'm laughing in praise! I'm laughing because God has defended my honor!"
What miracle are you waiting for? Have you been waiting for a long time? Have people encouraged you to give up because you've been waiting so long? Don't listen to them. During one of the times when I had to wait years for God to work a situation out, someone I had to deal with on a regular basis kept advising me, "You're beating a dead horse. This is never going to change. You need to give up and forget about it." I know this person talked about my situation behind my back; that's how so many other people in my community heard about my problem. I know this person laughed behind my back when I kept waiting for God to move the mountain that was currently smack-dab in the middle of my path. Well, I guess that person had to eat their words when God came through for me. Who's laughing now? It's me, laughing in praise and delight every time I think about the miracle my faithful and powerful God pulled off. So don't listen to people who tell you God is not going to do something big for you. He is God and they are not. He knows what He's going to do and they don't...and very soon He may prove it to them!
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