When both Abraham and Sarah were first told that at ages 99 and 90, respectively, they would be expecting a child, their first reaction was to laugh. Abraham laughed so hard that he fell on his face. Sarah was so embarrassed by her outburst that she tried to deny it. Although it is not entirely obvious the degree to which their laughter was either disbelieving or genuinely joyful, it seems fairly clear that there was a mixture of both cynicism and hope. In any case, it does seem like the Lord was not willing to let go of the whole laughing matter so easily. The Lord instructed Abraham to name his and Sarah's son Isaac, which means “to laugh” or “to rejoice”. That seems almost a little uncalled for to have God rubbing in the noses of Abraham and Sarah the fact that they both laughed him out of the room when He first told them He was going to bless them with the thing they had prayed for most earnestly for decades and which seemed biologically well outside of the realm of possibility. Did God want them both to remember their lack of faith every time they used their son’s name? I don't think so. I don't think God was so much concerned with the first laugh as He was the last laugh. When God first presented His laughable plan to His children, it was received at least to a certain degree with mocking and derision and laughter. Don't we sometimes fall into that same trap? Don't we sometimes get an answer to some of our prayers that seems so far-fetched and impossible that all we can do is shake our heads and laugh at God and ourselves for how foolish this all is? But Abraham and Sarah set aside their own understanding on what was and wasn't possible and trusted in the Lord. When they finally held their son in their arms, they named him Isaac, or laughter, not in memory of their incredulous and faith-lacking laughter from nine months before, but because they were laughing in gladness and weeping for joy at the merciful miracles of a Father in Heaven who always answers prayers even if it takes a hundred years. If we stick with the Lord, our tears of sorrow will turn into tears of joy and our laughs of mocking will turn into laughs of rejoicing.
