God's Glory Church

By faith Sarah herself (being barren) received the strength to receive seed and gave birth out of season, for she knew that He who promised was faithful. And therefore from one, and, moreover, a dead one, as many were born, as there are many stars in the sky and as countless are the sand on the seashore. Heb. 11:11-12

For the first time among the heroes of faith, this chapter shows the faith of a woman. We are accustomed to considering men of faith as heroes and to follow their example. But society is made up of men and women, and Scripture reveals to us not only men of faith, but also women of faith who are deeply religious and devoted to God.

In general, Scripture presents us with a whole string of women, positive and negative, who, in one way or another, influenced the course of history. Female images are either great saints or fallen sinners on the path of faith. All of them, in some sense, are prototypes of the Church, despite their positive or negative role in the life of God’s people. And they all performed that part of the overall task that corresponded to their capabilities. And if a man was entrusted with the conquest of the earth and the construction of the world, then God commanded the woman to devote herself to a higher and more spiritual task: to use the fruits of men’s labor to build a family and educate citizens of society.

No man will achieve any goal if he tries to achieve it alone. Any task will be too difficult for him. To accomplish it, the combined efforts of two people, a man and a woman, are required; they need to work together, compensating for each other’s shortcomings, harmoniously complementing each other. Scripture gives equal importance to man and woman as executors of the Divine will – each in his own sphere of activity. A man without a wife is deprived of integrity; in his wife he looks for the missing part of his own being. That is why it is written: “…a man will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife; and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).

This is the Jewish view of the role and position of men and women in the life of human society, where, by the Lord’s definition, a woman, along with a man, is placed in one of the leading places. Jewish theologians consider the married couple Abraham and Sarah to be the ideal embodiment of this view, and one cannot but agree with this. For the role of the forefathers of the chosen people, God chose people with an ideal combination of internal qualities: unity of spirit, unity of soul and body, understanding of great tasks, complete dedication to them. This equal and harmonious cooperation on the basis of God’s calling was embodied in this wonderful married couple.

The Lord gives Abraham and Sarah their rightful place on the pages of Scripture. And moreover: He draws our attention to them and persistently invites us to look closely at these images and take an example from them. Next to Abraham, the father of faith, the friend of God, He boldly places Sarah and says: “Listen to Me, you who strive for righteousness, who seek the Lord! Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you” (Isaiah 51:1-2).

The Holy Spirit invites us to look at this special couple who mutually glorified the Creator and fulfilled the honorable mission of giving birth to the offspring He promised. From this beautiful couple, He separately singles out the woman, calling her by name, for her special, personal contribution to this matter and for her feat, so that we can appreciate her and take her as an example for ourselves: “Look at Sarah… who gave birth to you!”

In this wonderful invitation, all the dignity and greatness of her faith is noted – “which gave birth to you!” In this invitation of the Lord, all the shortcomings that took place in her life and her character, which people so love to notice, were drowned. If Eve was the mother of all mankind, then Sarah became the mother of Israel – the chosen people from all nations on earth.

It was this woman’s personal faith that played an outstanding role in the birth of the promised offspring. The Bible says: “And the Lord looked upon Sarah, as he had said; and the Lord did to Sarah as he had spoken” (Gen. 21:1). The word “looked upon” here means “the special intervention of God into the barren life of Sarah to make her capable of fulfilling the task to which she was pre-chosen.” She was then already 89 years old, and all her natural strength to bear children was exhausted, as it is written: “Abraham and Sarah were old and advanced in years, and Sarah’s custom among women ceased” (Gen. 18:11). In addition, she was barren from her youth. From a natural point of view, she had no hope of conceiving a child.

The words of God fell on favorable soil and were not slow to bear the long-awaited fruit. Sarah firmly believed that “He who promised is faithful,” and therefore accepted His words so deeply into her heart that she “received power to receive the seed” into her decrepit body. Inside Sarah herself, her faith began to take shape, become a living embryo, take on the form of flesh: she turned out to be capable of conception “and gave birth out of time.” Regardless of age, infertility, or signs within herself, she gave birth! This was the highest achievement of Sarah’s own faith. This was a feat of faith of a woman who was ripe to fulfill God’s plan – to produce the Jewish people chosen for the great mission.

This is the faith of God. She not only moves mountains (Mk. 11:23), but also transgresses the laws of nature and is capable of reviving something long dead and accomplishing something!