Week 7 - Laughter and Tears

Laughter and pain.  God tells Sarah she’ll give birth to Isaac. To laughter (recall – laughter is the meaning of Isaac’s name I believe).  She laughs in her pain.  

Summer Connection -- Laughter and tears -- The harvest of hearts poured out on the water each summer --

Romans 9:6-9  6It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”^b 8In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.9For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”^c

Isaac is Abraham’s only son.  Jesus is God’s only son. 

Genesis 17:7 – I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Galatians 3:6-9 6So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”^c7Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”^d 9So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

We are Isaac’s offspring.  “Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’” Our covenant name is children of laughter. 

Isaac was thrown on an altar to be a living sacrifice.  An Angel stopped his father’s hand. 

On Calvary, God sacrifices His laughter.  No angel stops his hand. God’s laughter….sacrificed.

Laughter and pain.
Laughter and Tears -- The harvest of God’s heart poured out --

Colosians 1:17-20  17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

This passage in Colosians is the thunder laugh that drowns out (really transforms more than drowns but we’ll say drowns) all tears. 

The deepest story of any story (no matter how hideous, shameful, & tragically hopeless – like seeing your heart’s laugher tortured and killed --) is Christ filling all things with fullness, reconciliation, peace, & supreme victory by His blood --- the harvest of God’s heart poured out.

The inner me is the enemy. No, let’s redo.  The inner Christ in me poured out in sacrificial love is the deepest revelation of fullness, reconciliation, peace and supreme victory. 

The inner Christ in me poured out  is Isaac’s story – laughter and tears. 

The inner Christ in me poured out is hilarious giggling in the face of massive oppression, suffering and impossible odds.

The inner Christ in me poured out is the transforming miracle of the messiah making all things new through His kingdom come in me and through me. 

In other words --- I can’t wait for SUMMER!!!!!!!