Rejoice, O Barren One
Galatians 4:21-31
March 19, 2023 anno Domini
Laetare. Rejoice. That’s this Sunday’s name. Rejoice in the middle of Lent. The fast is half over and the feast of the Resurrection, the feast of life coming.
Before my sermon continues, I need to give you fair warning. I’m going to talk about women today as God talks about them – as the only sex and gender that can conceive and bear a child. I never thought this would be a shocking statement, but God created women to have children. Equally shocking, I’m sure, is that men cannot have children. At one time this was clear to the world. Now, those statements are extremely radical, but then so is Jesus.
That’s your trigger warning. Now back to God’s Word. In the middle of today’s Epistle reading Saint Paul quotes Isaiah the Prophet and tells the Galatians to rejoice. (Read vs. 27a). The verse at best is difficult. Why should a barren woman rejoice? Our English translation masks how bad this woman’s situation is. The Greek word is sterile. Rejoice, O sterile woman. The next words are equally odd. Again the English is weak, “Convulse (in other words – go into contractions) and cry out, you who are not in labor.” Isaiah is telling the sterile woman to rejoice as if she is pregnant and then act like she is in labor even though she is not. What sort of foolishness is this Word of God? It is exactly that – the foolishness of God which causes us to rejoice because He has given us life anew.
That a woman is barren, that a young woman cannot have a child, is a sign that God’s creation is broken. Women were created by God to have children, but throughout Scripture there are barren women: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth. The God of Scripture, the Holy Trinity, is the only living God. He is the God of life. He is pro-life. He told Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But there are barren women and there are men who create children but do not father them. There are miscarriages and still births and children with Downs Syndrome. Instead of life and its joy abounding as God created it we are surrounded by death and sadness – not all women can bear children. Not all people who have children are married. Not everyone who gets married stay married. Husbands don’t love their wives as Christ loved the church and wives don’t submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ. Often, within marriage, is where we commit our worst sins – hurting those most whom we should love the most, fighting most when we should be forgiving the most.
Repent of your sin. It’s the cause of your sadness and your death. Repent. That’s what we hear in Lent, but today we also are commanded to rejoice. Repent and rejoice O barren one.
In the Old Testament there was two remedies for barrenness – one from man and one from God. We know the one from man – that’s what Sarah did for Abraham. In the Ancient Near East if, after you were married, your wife was discovered to be barren, she was required to provide you with another wife, through whom you could have offspring and your family would continue to live. Sarah was barren, so she provided Abraham with her servant Hagar. Hagar conceived and gave birth to Ishmael.
But, as you know, that human arrangement did not satisfy God. That’s because Sarah being barren wasn’t just about Sarah or Abraham, it was about Jesus. It was about God’s promise to bring real life to people. It was about saving every woman from being barren, and forgiving every sinner his sins, and giving every person on earth reason to rejoice.
God promised Abraham a son and this son of the promise held promise for every person on earth. Through Abraham’s son the world would be blessed, and Abraham would become the father of many nations. God promised, but Abraham and Sarah didn’t believe God could deliver. They took matters into their own hands with Hagar and Ishmael. God, however, doesn’t need your help to give life. If He did He wouldn’t be much of a god..
God opened Sarah’s womb and she gave birth to Isaac. That’s the heavenly remedy to barrenness. God did all the work. He delivered a son to the barren woman and she rejoiced – laughing at her laughter which is what Isaac’s name means.
So what does this rejoicing for the barren mean for us?
You are barren. You have no life in you and your solutions to this barrenness are as effective as the Hagar/Ishmael plan. On the outside it might look like we are living, but this isn’t real life, it isn’t eternal life, it isn’t the blessed life of God. It’s a charade.
Rejoice O barren one, you are going to be given life through childbirth. God opened the virgin womb of a woman named Mary and by His Spirit conceived Jesus. This Son, the Son of God from all eternity, and the son of Mary, is the ultimate Isaac. Jesus of Nazareth, is your life, your joy and your laughter.
Today’s Gospel reading teaches how He, Jesus is your life. The people were in the wilderness hearing Him preach, but they were dying people in a barren land. There was no food. They would have fainted on the way home. Jesus took them into the wilderness to show them they were dying. He preached so long they missed the buffet at Coyote Moon. They were starving. He preached them to death so He could supply them with life. They did nothing and He did everything. He gave them bread from heaven, enough so every one was satisfied. Enough so there were leftovers. There was no shortage of life when Jesus finished preaching and the bread of life came from heaven.
Rejoice, O barren one, because Jesus has been born for you, born from the womb of Mary, but more importantly born again from the tomb, having taken away your sins. By Christ’s death you are forgiven. On the cross the Lord of life goes into the desolate land of death. Christ takes your sins and dies so that you can have His forgiveness and live. The eternal Son of God is laid in the tomb, that untold sons of God might be born in the baptismal womb of the Church.
Lent is more than half over. Three weeks from today we celebrate the resurrection. So, rejoice, O barren one. Live like you are in labor, like you about to be delivered because you are. Christ is coming to deliver you, deliver you from this desolate land and bring you into the new heavens and the new earth, the land of life. He’s going to deliver you a new and glorious body in the resurrection without sin, with your eyes, ears, and all your senses restored to perfection, to life. It is easy to be discouraged in this barren land of death. Like Sarah of old we try to make life in our own ways, but we cannot. Repent. God alone has given you life and it is an expectant life because there’s more to come, so rejoice and live like you’re expecting that life. In the name of Jesus. Amen.