Weekly Devotional for June 6, 2016

Scripture reading: Luke 8:40-56 (Daily lectionary text appointed for June 8), Genesis 18:9-14

Sometimes, it's hard not to laugh.

We laugh at things unexpected. That's essentially the essence of comedy. The joke never quite has the punch line you expect. People are never quite as grandiose as they appear. A person cannot be truly that foolish, can they? Someone fell over in the middle of the sidewalk. Didn't see that coming. Ha ha!

As some of the above examples imply, laughter can have an element of cruelty to it. The thing unexpected is someone's misfortune. An otherwise intelligent person says something stupid. An otherwise graceful person takes a tumble. Someone says something so outlandish that our only response is to laugh at them.

Which brings us to our Scripture readings this week. Two stories of miracles. Two stories of laughter. We are likely familiar with both. God announced to Abraham and Sarah that they will have a son in their old age. While biologically men are capable of fathering children at any point, it is common knowledge that the reproductive organs of women shut down after a certain age. While modern science has made that age later and later, this is not a modern story. It's ridiculous on its face. There is no way for Sarah to have children, so she laughs.

Jesus encounters the dead daughter of Jairus and declares boldly that she is merely sleeping. The crowd can see the evidence before them: the ashen skin, the lack of breath, the cold skin. The girl is quite dead. Who is this idiot who thinks this is what sleep looks like? So they laugh.

It's hard to blame them. What God proposes in both these stories is nonsense on its face. Dead is dead. Barren is barren (or menopausal, as the case may be.) These things cannot be changed. There is no cure for them, no reversal. To suggest otherwise is utter foolishness.

But as God says to Abraham, "Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?" Or as Jesus himself says at another point, "With God, all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)

We make many bold and seemingly impossible claims as Christians. We claim that Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified. We claim that people have miraculously recovered numerous times in Biblical stories of incurable ailments. We say God parted the sea to let his people escape slavery. We claim Jesus walked on top of water and made enough food to feed thousands of people from one meager packed lunch. And perhaps most impossible of all, we claim that God loves us so much that he came down to earth as a mortal and then died to claim us as his own. It's enough to make one ROFL (I presume most folks are Internet savvy enough to know what that acronym means.)

But it's all true. For with God, all things are possible. Salvation is ours through the impossible love of a God beyond our comprehension. These ancient stories stand as evidence to that which we can barely believe. If God can and does do such things, what might he do with me?

Indeed.