Genesis 18:1-14
Intro
The idea of miracles is something that we’re not all that comfortable with in today’s world. Simply put, most corners of society like to be able to explain everything and if we can’t explain it, well, we’ll do what we can to explain it away. We live under a mode of science where experts in their field tell what is real and what is true, at least until they acquire new information and then they’ll tell us how this new variation on the theme is now the truth (global cooling anyone?).
However, from a position of faith, we are called to look at the world in a different way. We are called to look at the world and be open to the fact that God can be and is at work, causing that which was thought impossible to become reality. This morning’s passage gives us one such story. It is in these verses that we hear how God, and two unnamed and unidentified companions, pay a visit to Abraham in order to reiterate to he and his wife the news that they will be the foundational stepping stone of what will become generations of progeny more numerous then the grains of sand along the shore. As we know the story, Abraham and Sarah are older. Genesis tells us that they are 100 and 90 respectively. Do I think that their age matches to the 12-month calendar that we now use? No I don’t. But what we can tell from their age, and Sarah’s doubt at such a miracle taking place, is that Sarah is beyond the traditional childbearing age. And yet, as we know the story, Isaac ultimately is born.
Miracles happens. The question is, which set of eyes are we going to use: the eyes of the world or the eyes of faith? The scripture reads this way.
Genesis 18:1-14
18 The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. 3 He said, "My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." 7 Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
9
They said to him, "Where is your wife Sarah?" And he said, "There, in the tent." 10 Then one said, "I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" 13 The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.""Too Wonderful?"
As I was planning out my week on Tuesday, I had it pictured in my mind how I would be able to write the majority of what would constitute today’s sermon on Friday afternoon. However, about four minutes after I sat down at my desk on Friday afternoon the phone rang and 15 minutes later I was out the door driving someone to a doctor’s appointment. By the time I got home, the brain was a little scattered and I knew that the plan that looked so hopeful only a few hours earlier needed to be scrapped. The sermon would have to be written on Saturday.
So there I sat yesterday, behind my desk looking at a blank document with the cursor just blinking, and the noise I created for the cursor inside my head just kept getting louder, and louder, and louder. And I sat there and I thought, "well, at least the scripture is was it is, because if you want to get anything written today you’re going to need a minor miracle."
And that’s when it hit me: just tell some stories about the miracles that are encountered in our time. Because the story that we hear about Abraham and Sarah is not all that complicated, you might not think it’s believable, but it isn’t complicated. God shows up to remind Abraham that he and his wife are going to become are going to become parents and their child will be the first of countless numbers of descendants.
Sarah hears this, and much like her husband did when he was first told, she laughs because it’s ‘not possible’. Sarah had been unable to bear children and regardless of what her age actually was, she and her husband were considered by the society that they were a part of to be old, and the fact that they did not have any children certainly had to be a point of pain and hardship, again, because that was what was expected from couples in that time. You get married: you have kids. That’s the way it worked. But it didn’t work that way for Abraham and Sarah. So Sarah hears some stranger say that a miracle is going to happen and she does what many of us would have done: she laughs it off.
God’s response is absolutely perfect: "Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?" Through the eyes of the world the answer to that question might be, "God? What God? Whatever happens to me can be explained, it’s just a matter of connecting the right dots." That’s the eyes of the world.
However, through the eyes of faith, the answer is much, much different. Through the eyes of faith, the answer becomes, "nothing is too wonderful for God. Nothing." The question is are we going to have the faith to trust that God is actually going to work in and through our lives? Or are we going to laugh it off as impossible?
A few months ago I had a gentleman approach me and tell me about some health issues that he was facing. If I remember it right what he said was, "put your hand right here." And with that he grabbed my wrist and had me touch a spot on the left side of his chest. I immediately felt a large and hard protrusion: more than likely, a tumor. He talked about how the doctors had told him that whatever it was, it was more than likely benign, and their evidence for this was the fact that he was experiencing pain that was strong enough that it would wake him up at night, if it allowed him to sleep at all.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. Same gentleman, same line of, "put your hand right here." One big difference: the tumor was gone. He looked at me and confirmed what I (didn’t) feel. He said, "It’s gone. The doctors don’t understand it, but it’s gone and so is the pain. There have been so many people who have been praying for me and it’s gone." A tear began to well up in his eye and he concluded, "God is amazing!" Nothing is too wonderful for God.
Now with that sort of miracle story out there, I want to shift gears and talk about one of the great ideas that the Health Ministry has brought to my consciousness. It is this: you can be made well, and not necessarily be healed physically. This sort of miraculous healing doesn’t get all that much press, but it is no less incredible.
I recently heard of this sort of situation in regards to a gentleman who was dying. He had been sick for a long time, over 25 years. Over those many years, and as he continued to deteriorate he became angry with God. I don’t think that many of us could blame him for such a reaction.
Toward the end of his life, during one of his stays in the hospital, he was asked if he would like to have a priest pray with him. He said yes. No is sure why, but he said yes. After he was able to talk and pray with that pastor a sense of peace began to reign in his life. He was dying, and my guess is that somewhere inside he knew that his death was going to come sooner rather than later, but what ultimately became his final weeks in this plain of existence were not filled with anger, but instead with a peace filled hope. Even though he died, he was made well. Nothing is too wonderful for God.
One last story: I once knew a guy who, in regards to relationships, felt like the world had passed him by. He was alone, he was lonely, and he was watching as all of his contemporaries were getting married and having kids. At one point he actually thought to himself, "just get used to it. You are meant to be alone." It was ugly. This state of mind lasted what must have felt like a long, long, long, long time.
A few years go by, and suddenly, even though he was giving off negative vibes about himself that you could feel from three blocks away, a woman enters his life and somehow finds a way to begin to allow this guy to realize that he is not meant to be alone. That, in fact, if he is willing to let his negative mindset get out of the way, she is willing to become a partner with him. This guy was in a horribly negative place, but over the course of several years a miraculous thing took place: he actually came to know that he was not the caricature that he had created for himself. That he was someone who could be loved and in turn, could love others: especially that same woman who became his wife. There is nothing too wonderful for God!
Like I said, just a few stories, and to be perfectly candid, as we view the world with the eyes of faith, the fact that I was actually able to have something written through me on a Saturday morning when I was worried that nothing was there to be written, even that I consider evidence that in the Lord there is nothing too wonderful! Open your eyes and see the world through your faith. If you do, you’ll be amazed at all of the miraculous happenings that are taking place all around you.
Too wonderful? Not for God!
After Sermon Prayer
Most holy and merciful God, You being at work in the world is not just limited to the stories that we are able to hear in the Scriptures: You are at work in the here and now! God, help us to always remember that in You there is nothing too wonderful, for in You, all things are possible. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.