Week 2 – Sarah
Sarah was Abraham’s wife, child bride, and half-sister. She had little say about her husband’s, his Father Terah’s, orphaned nephew Lot’s, and extended family’s call to pack up and leave for the promised land, just as she wouldn’t probably have had a say in the marriage. The group makes it some distance to where they are headed but stops short at Haran. Abraham, Sarai, and Lot continue to Canaan.
Sarah is a long-suffering wife. She lives as a nomad, faithfully following her husband and His calling. She is, for the most part, an onlooker to her husband’s relationship with the Lord.
The one thing that women were esteemed for in these days was bearing children, yet Sarah can’t conceive a child. Month after month, year after year, she waits, she hopes, and once again, the blood comes…. Until she reaches the age where it doesn’t anymore, it becomes all-consuming for her. Her ability to conceive a child or not is what she feels defines her.
Then there’s a glint of hope; Abraham comes home to tell her that His God has promised not just children but hundreds and thousands of children, descendants as numerous as the stars. How must Sarah’s heart feel? Did she dare to believe this could be possible, or was she all done and fearful of hoping?
It’s safer sometimes not to hope, isn’t it? It avoids what might feel like the inevitable crash afterwards and stops us from being quite so vulnerable to disappointment. A lifetime of thinking, maybe, just maybe, this will be the month… I wonder how long it would have taken for us to have lost faith in this promise?
So, Sarah takes matters into her own hands. Knowing the end of the story, it’s easy for us to tut at her impatience. But she was 90 before she heard that promise for herself, for her part in the story to unfold. I wonder if, in truth, Sarah felt she was standing in the way of the fulfilment of the promise, that she was hindering God’s will, that for whatever reason, her barrenness was the obstacle, not an essential part of the story being written. Can we see this not as impatience but as a sacrificial act from a woman broken from a life that had never shown her that she, too, was important. I think of how important it was that Abraham had helped Sarah come to know God as he did, I’m thinking too of the people who form an impression of God through our relationship, good or bad.
We will often make rash decisions or think it’s all up to us if we see God as harsh and distant, some tyrant to be appeased. I wonder if we, like Sarah, have a warped idea of his power and goodness. Do we think that unanswered prayer means we aren’t loved, important, or seen?
Sarah gives Abraham her maidservant Hagar to sleep with, he is unsurprisingly Ok with this idea. Hagar sleeps with Abram, and she gets pregnant. And as a result, she begins to look down on her mistress. After all, she too, has been entirely powerless till now, But Sarai isn’t going to take this, not from her slave. She complains to Abraham; he is very “yeah, whatever.” Then Sarah acts cruelly—so cruelly that pregnant Hagar, a slave with nothing of her own and no man to protect her, prefers to run away rather than stay another day in Sarai’s household. We know that hurting people lash out. The saying is hurt people, hurt people, and Sarah is hurting deeply. To stand and watch another woman carry her husband’s child only falsely reaffirmed her infertility and falsely reaffirmed for her that she was the one standing in the way of God fulfilling these nations through Abraham. It’s not until the time at the tent when the three angels visit that Sarah hears the promise for the first time herself.
There’s a great verse here… Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
Eventually, the promise comes, and Sarah, at 90 years old, gives birth to Isaac; Hagar and Ishmael get cast out, but the Lord looks out for them too. Hagar has her own story.
So, a few takeaways from this : I wonder if we, too, have believed that the plans, the God story, are for someone else and our role is only a bit part? It’s the food of temptation to take things into our own hands and write a story for ourselves. Here we are 1000’s of years later, and Sarah and Hagar’s offspring are still at war; the story Sarah wrote still plays out today. How many of our seemingly small decisions will ripple down history, for better or for worse?
A question to sit with for ourselves is, perhaps. “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” hint the answer is no… Surely something to cling to when it all feels too impossible, and answers are too long coming… The booklet contains a list of God’s promises to you; it’s worth spending time with them.
