Why did Sarah laugh?

There is a famous icon, by the hand of Andrei Rublev, called the Old Testament Trinity. Based on a story in the book of Genesis, it shows three angels gathered around a small table laden with food and drink. The icon gives us a picture of three persons in a mutual relationship of commonality and exchange - that helps us imagine the nature of God as one in three.

The Old Testament Trinity changed the subject, literally, of an earlier iconic image, the Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah. You may see this image in icons and in other art. What it shows is the whole image of the visit of three strangers to the Oaks of Mamre, and the tent of Abraham and Sarah. Abraham humbly greets the angelic visitors, while Sarah looks on from behind the gathered folds of their tent.

The three visitors have just arrived; they are strangers. And yet, unaware that he is entertaining angels, Abraham extends the full hospitality of his household to them.

He offers them everything Martha and Mary and Lazarus combined would give the Lord.

He doesn't know them at all. But there it is.

Openhearted, open-handed hospitality. And it is an icon for us, of just that.

It is more than an image to contemplate - if we choose it to be: it can be the opening of a door to the sacred, a doorway to the future.

A future in which all are welcome. Whoever we are, the door is open to us.

You may be a total stranger; but you are welcome. And you are invited to welcome others. 

As we welcome others, strangers to us as they may be, and offer to share the gifts with them that God has entrusted us to give, we encounter ... messengers of a hopeful future.

Before they leave Abraham and Sarah, the three visitors give them a promise, one only God could keep: the first heir of a future with hope, not just for themselves but for all who follow them in faith; indeed what God has purposed will happen, and the inheritors of their faith will become as numerous as the stars.

Sarah laughed. Why did Sarah laugh? Perhaps it was doubt. But maybe it was joy.

JRL+

Genesis 18:1-14

"Offer open-handed hospitality even to strangers", Arizona Daily Star, Keeping the Faith, Sunday March 7th 2021 page E3.  https://tucson.com/open-hearted-open-handed-hospitality-even-for-strangers/article_5c886751-b8a3-5282-8c31-8c84a87179fe.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(Andrei_Rublev)#/media/File:Angelsatmamre-trinity-rublev-1410.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Ghiberti_puerta_para%C3%ADso.jpg