Holy Laughter

And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” (Genesis 17:15-17)

They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” The LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:9-15)

One thing we notice that is totally absent from the Bible is what we would call humor or jesting. The subject-matter of Scripture is serious and not the place for foolishness and silliness. Those who laugh about serious things, including the Word of God, often show more about themselves than they realize. There is a laughter that is nothing more than mocking unbelief and a lack of reverence for holiness. Our own culture seems to mock everything. Nothing is holy. This can often mask a deep despair and hopelessness. They laugh because they have hit rock bottom and there is nothing else to do. So they choose laughter instead. Mocking laughter also betrays overconfidence and a false security in that they believe that they will not be held accountable.

God laughs at the wicked (Psalm 2), but it is not a humorous laugh. It is a sardonic laugh at the pathetic attempts of little human beings to dethrone God and His purpose. The Bible does not encourage foolish, empty laughter. Solomon has some wisdom to teach us on this subject:

I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” (Ecclesiastes 2:2)

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
this also is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 7:6)

But the Scriptures do speak of joy, even the joy of the Lord and the joy of salvation. It is right for us to pursue these things. The joy of the Lord is our strength! It is nearly impossible for a believer, who is a stranger and an alien in a hostile world, to continue to walk by faith and fight the good fight of faith without joy. Discouragement and spiritual depression are like poison to the soul.

There are a few times laughter is mentioned in Scripture and these happen to come at a very important juncture in sacred history. Abraham laughed when God told him that he would have a son in his old age through his elderly and barren wife, Sarah (Gen. 17.17). To mark this announcement, God even changed her name to Sarah, as He had previously changed Abram's name to Abraham to reflect the Promise He made to him. We should notice that these promises about countless offspring were made to an old man and his barren wife! God had waited until Sarah was well past the natural age of childbearing before making the clarification that the Promise would be realized through her child. There was no ability for them to naturally fulfill the promise of God. Ishmael was rejected, being born the natural way. God was setting up a situation and a scenario in which the fulfillment could come only through Him.

So Abraham laughed to himself. But it was not a laugh of unbelief. Abraham did not waver in unbelief regarding the promise of God. Abraham's laugh was one of amazement! It is the kind of laugh that is saying "who has ever heard of something like this before? Only God could do this!"

God did not make mention of this secret laughter of Abraham and he was not rebuked for it. Previously God had not clarified that Sarah would bear a son who would be the child of promise. So Abraham and Sarah were still acting in faith when they got Hagar involved. They just didn't have all the information. They had been waiting for the Promise to come, but decided to take matters into their own hands. And God used even this to teach us about the difference between salvation by grace through faith and salvation through the works of the Law.

God came to Abraham again after this, and this time, with Sarah listening at the door of her tent, He reminded Abraham of the promise of a son through her. The Lord asked "where is Sarah?" That was not because He didn't know she was listening, that was for Sarah. God had called her name. God had remembered her and had not forgotten about all her years of barrenness. The Lord would return again next year – God never is in a hurry and they had waited this long, so another year would not matter – and Sarah would conceive a child. Her barrenness would be made into fruitfulness by a Divine visitation. The Scriptures again make it very clear again that Sarah is WAY past the natural age of childbearing.

Now it is Sarah's turn to laugh--to herself, as Abraham had done! The Lord takes note this time. He does not sharply rebuke Sarah. The Lord is gentle and what He did not say to Abraham when he laughed, He says to Sarah when she laughed because this is something Sarah needed to hear. Sarah's laugh was born from years of disappointment, heartbreak, and bitterness because of her inability to conceive. It is hard to understand the bitterness of soul that would come to a barren woman in a time when her only purpose in life was to bear children. We see a glimpse into this bitterness in the tears of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who was mocked by a fruitful rival to boot! All of Sarah's usefulness, both to her husband and to God, especially in light of the Promise they received, hinged on her ability to conceive—the one thing she had always failed to do.

Sarah denied that she had laughed, just as many of us have denied or ignored the foolish things we have done. It's human nature to try to hide our faults even though we must know that God knows. The Lord confronted Sarah's laugh, and in so doing was also dealing with all of Sarah's shame in her barrenness: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

Christian leaders must make encouragement for the people of God a major priority in their ministries. Pastors are to be helpers of the joy of the Body of Christ. Joy is the fruit of the Spirit and is not something that can be produced by human effort. Emotionalism is a poor replacement for true, spiritual joy. Our Church gatherings should encouragement the joy of the Spirit and not the mere exuberance of the Flesh, which will always dissipate and leave us empty. Joy, on the other hand, is a kind of holy laughter that comes from experiencing the grace of God and seeing Him fulfill His promises.