“The one of the men said, ‘I will definitely return to you about this time next year. Then your wife Sarah will have a son!’…Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, I’m no longer able to have children and my husband’s old.” (Genesis 18:10a, 12).
There are lots of ways one responds to riding a roller coaster. Screaming is right up there. Maybe praying, too, even for the non-religious (“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God”). I remember riding on roller coasters with my father when I was young and his reaction is now my most common response: laughter. When you’re going incredibly fast up and around twists and turns, I find laughter the best kind of release. In today’s text, three strangers visit Abraham and Sarah and inform them that Sarah will have a son. Sarah, as you may have picked up from the verse, is old as is Abraham so Sarah has a natural response: she laughs. Sometimes when we hear or experience something so outrageous, laughing is all we can do. The key is the kind of laugh. Is it a laughter of amazement? “Of course!” Or is it a laughter of derision? “No way.” Is God doing something outrageous in your life? How will you laugh in response?