Laughter: “And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.” Genesis 21:6. This reaches far beyond Sarah. It is not merely the joy of a mother, but something bound up with a declaration, something to be heard. What God had done could not be kept to herself. “All that hear will laugh with me.” Hear what? Not simply the report of Isaac’s birth, but what that birth declared, that God has acted, and has done the very thing that seemed impossible. Luke 18:27. That He brings forth life, not from the will of the flesh nor the strength of man, but by His own promise. Isaac stands as a testimony of that truth, but Christ is its fulfillment. And in that light, her laughter becomes a picture of the gospel itself. For when the voice of the Shepherd is heard in the gospel, when Christ is set forth as the One in whom life is given, righteousness established, and peace made, there is a response that answers to it. Those who hear do not merely understand something; they rejoice. They laugh with Sarah, in the settled joy that what God has done is both real and sufficient. And so the laughter continues, not as a private moment, but as a shared rejoicing in the grace of God in Christ, showing us that God’s way of salvation is altogether beyond expectation, beyond anything we could bring forth, and entirely apart from human contribution. Romans 9:16.
But this is not the first time laughter is mentioned. If we step back a little, to Genesis 18, we find Sarah laughing again, but in a very different way. There, the promise is given but not yet seen. The word is spoken, yet its fulfillment still lies beyond her, and what is said stands so far above anything natural that it almost feels unreal. Nothing about her situation supports it. It runs against everything she knows, everything experience would lead her to expect. And so, in astonishment, she laughs within herself. Not with joy, but with wonder, because what God had spoken could not be traced to any natural source and lay completely outside the bounds of human reasoning. If it was to come to pass, it would have to be God doing it from beginning to end, and that is what made it so difficult to receive. Isaiah 45:22.
There is something in this that reaches into our own experience. When God reveals how He saves, how everything is given in Christ, it carries that same sense of wonder. That righteousness is not something we bring forth, but something received; that life is not cultivated but given; that our acceptance before God is not the result of progress, discipline, or devotion, but is found entirely in Christ. It feels, at first, almost too much, too complete, too far outside the way we naturally reckon things. It cuts across much of what passes for religion, where man is still placed at the center, working, improving, and striving to make himself acceptable. And when God makes this known, that life is not found in who we are, but in who Christ is, it carries that same note of holy astonishment. Can it really be this free?
And this is where it all comes back: “All that hear will laugh with me.” There is more in that than first appears. This is not just hearing something but recognizing a voice. “My sheep hear my voice…” John 10:27. Because when God makes known what He has done in Christ, how life is given and righteousness established, what once seemed impossible is now known. John 5:24. Life has been given. Righteousness established. Everything is secured in Christ. It is the work of God, made known in His Son. And where that is heard, there is joy. MPJ