Laughter Fulfilled: Genesis 21:1-7

Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised.

As he had said. What he had promised. Twenty-five years of waiting, and God's word came true.

Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.

The very time. Not early, not late—exactly when God said it would happen. The God of promise was also the God of precision.

Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.

Isaac. Yitzhak. "He laughs." The name captured the whole impossible story—Sarah's bitter laugh at the tent door, Abraham's incredulous laugh when God first promised a son, and now a different laugh entirely.

When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

One hundred years old. A century of living, and only now the promised son in his arms. Abraham had been seventy-five when God first called him. He had waited a quarter of his life for this moment.

Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me."

The bitter laugh had become joyful. The skeptical laugh had become celebration. Sarah, who had laughed at God's promise, now laughed with God's gift.

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."

Who would have said? The question was rhetorical, but the answer was obvious: God would have said. God did say. And God delivered.

Ninety years old, breasts swollen with milk, arms cradling the impossible son—Sarah had become a mother. The barren woman, the one who had schemed and doubted and laughed in disbelief, now laughed in amazement.

The promise had been kept. Isaac had arrived. And the laughter that echoed through their tent would echo through history.