What kind of God would do such a thing? I mean that thing about promising a baby to a couple for so long that they are old people by the time the baby comes. What kind of God would wait until—and it’s scripture that says this, not your pastor—would wait until these people were as good as dead, before giving new life through them? Is this the Divine Trickster who withholds good things from us until we are desperate enough to be really, really grateful when the promise is kept? Or is this a God so free to be God that the ordinary ways of doing things do not apply?

The key is in the question the mysterious stranger asks when Sarah gives her famous laugh: “Is anything impossible for God? Is anything too wonderful?” The whole of salvation history hangs on the answer to that question. Sarah’s laugh is only a technical detail in God’s determination to remain faithful to that ridiculous promise made to both Abraham and Sarah. In fact, laughter is the Biblical response to receiving God’s grace in totally unexpected ways, so don’t blame Sarah. Instead, consider that the answer to the stranger’s question requires flesh-and-blood faith in something that is beyond the ability of humans to believe.

We ask the stranger’s question a million times and answer it with our own lives. When I was little, I remember pestering my dad with questions about God. Once, Dad was answering my questions about the mind-boggling power of God, when I asked, “Is there anything God can’t do?” Dad said that there was something: God couldn’t make a rock so big that God couldn’t lift it. The stranger’s question to Abraham and Sarah wasn’t a trick question, nor are our life questions so easily answered as my dad’s trick answer. When my life fell apart, I complained in heartbreak to my pastor that I had used to think I had gifts to offer in God’s service, but now I had nothing in my hands to offer. “Good news, Eileen,” he said. “Empty hands are receiving hands.” Which is the lesson of Abraham and Sarah’s story. The promise doesn’t even depend on the faith of Abraham and Sarah—they are models of disbelief! Sometime look at the ways they try to force God’s promise to “come true.” The promise of posterity, place, blessing depends only on the loyalty of God. The same thing goes for us. Each of us must answer this question, “Can God do this wonderful thing for me—even when I doubt it’s possible? Even when I’m not ready? Even when I don’t really think I deserve it?”

Sarah’s laugh is what gets me. Did Sarah laugh out of disbelief? “Who could imagine a 90-year-old woman getting pregnant?” Did Sarah laugh out of exasperation? “I have waited 90 years! What kind of God would come through on this now?” Out of faith? “Finally!” The text says Sarah was “afraid.” Afraid of what? That the stranger who knew her name before they were introduced would punish her for laughing? Or did she laugh because she was afraid she might get what she wanted?

We know how that is. Sometimes we want something so badly—to get a good job, to start a family, to get into a good school, to get over this pain—sometimes our wanting is what defines so much “who we are,” that when we finally get it, it’s an anti-climax. It’s almost as if we’ve got to find something else to want, because wanting is more “who we are” than being who we are. Sarah and Abraham had been childless for so long, they were used to it. Their whole way of being was shattered when God kept the promise. Did Sarah laugh for sheer terror that she might get what she wanted? What kind of God would do that—scare an old lady half to death?

So it wouldn’t be so bad if there is something too hard for God, because then at least things won’t change—we’ll get to stay in our stable world. The familiarity of hopelessness makes us resistant to hope. Because if God keeps the promise—new life, posterity, place, blessing—if God keeps the promise, the next step is ours. Speaking of terrifying--! If God keeps the promise, we’ve got to embrace God’s call—respond to God’s claim that we put flesh and blood to our wants—the wants turned improbably into faith because of a kept promise.

If there is anything too hard for God, that means we’ve not yet confessed our God as bigger and freer to be God than we are. But if nothing is “too hard” for God, the logical conclusion is that we entrust ourselves to God. We give up control of ourselves and the world around us. We let God be God. Nothing could be scarier.

I will admit that I came from a faith tradition that paid a lot of lip service to the triumphalist God. “Everything is in God’s hands. The victory is God’s!” The God of just-in-time. The God powerful enough to stop the speeding car from crashing into the bridge abutment, powerful enough to stop the war between Israel and Palestine, powerful enough to make your spouse stop drinking and ruining your life, powerful enough to get you into the college of your dreams. Which is all true. God is powerful enough for all of this and more. The triumphalist Godview reasons that the mere fact that God doesn’t do this at our beck and call is either that God doesn’t feel like doing it in our particular case, or that those who would benefit from the intervention don’t deserve the immediate attention of the all-powerful deity. Which sends us back to the Divine Trickster, and I don’t want to go there. God is free, God is powerful, but we sure-as-shootin’ had better spend a good chunk of our faith journey in dealing with the question, “Is anything impossible for God?” But when we do, we need to be sure that we are not separating God’s promise--God’s promise to “be able,” for instance, or God’s promise to be present with us—we need to be sure that we are not separating God’s promise from the concrete reality of the world in which we live. This is not the God of magic tricks. We can’t forget the “word of promise” in the birth of Isaac to these two old geezers. One of the most important parts of the job of the church is declaring God’s continuing promise to the world. On the other hand, we can’t forget that poor old Sarah had to get pregnant, go into labor, nurse a child, and chase after a toddler! At 90. The promise is fulfilled, but it is always fulfilled in those who are “as good as dead.” That’s us.

Empty hands are receiving hands. That’s a promise and that’s grace. That is the good news. But there is a severe-ness to this grace. All things are possible for God, but by the rules of the game, God does not circumvent suffering. There will be suffering in this world. But God brings life from even our deadness/barrenness/hopelessness. New life, but we will also spend some time in the land of hopelessness, the place where reality comes to a dead end. What kind of God would allow carpal tunnel syndrome to end the career of a promising violinist--? Who became a minister, instead. What kind of God would stand by while her marriage washed away in his beer and her self-doubt--? So her loving heart was turned to providing foster care for abused kids. What kind of God would allow him to be rejected by the School of Education--? So his protective feelings toward the underdog helps him as a public defender now. What kind of God would bring such fruitfulness to our barren lives? A God perfectly free to do as God will. A God who loves you to death. God’s own death. A God who promises new life for yours.