Is There Any Thing Hard to God: Sara at Mambre and Mary at Nazareth
Old Testament: Genesis 18:12-14
And she laughed secretly, saying: After I am grown old and my lord is an old man, shall I give myself to pleasure? And the Lord said to Abraham: Why did Sara laugh, saying: Shall I who am an old woman bear a child indeed? Is there any thing hard to God? According to appointment I will return to thee at this same time, life accompanying, and Sara shall have a son.
New Testament: Luke 1:36-38; Matthew 19:26
And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God. And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. ... And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.
The connection
At Mambre the Lord promised a son to a woman long past bearing, and Sara "laughed secretly". The answer came as a question: "Is there any thing hard to God? ... Sara shall have a son" (Genesis 18:12-14). At Nazareth the angel gives Mary a sign of the same kind, her cousin Elizabeth, "she also hath conceived a son in her old age", and ends with the Lord's own words from Mambre: "no word shall be impossible with God" (Luke 1:36-37). This time the woman does not laugh: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word" (1:38). What was promised to the old is now promised to a virgin, and the child is not Isaac but the Son of the most High. St John Chrysostom notes that Gabriel "did not remind her of Sarah, or Rebecca, or Rachel, because they were examples of ancient times, but he brings forward a recent event, that he might the more forcibly strike her mind." St Bede says the sign was given "lest the virgin should despair of being able to bear a son ... that she might learn that all things are possible with God, even those which seem to be opposed to the order of nature." The Catechism counts Sara, who "conceives a son in spite of her old age" by virtue of God's promise, among the holy women who prepared for Mary (CCC 489). Christ Himself says it of the hardest thing of all. When the disciples ask who then can be saved, He answers: "With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).
Moral sense
Sara laughed and Mary believed, and both received the child. Zachary asked for proof (Luke 1:18); Mary asked only how, and then said yes. When God promises what we cannot see how to reach, the soul's part is not to make the impossible happen but to consent to it. Even Sara's laugh was redeemed: "God hath made a laughter for me: whosoever shall hear of it will laugh with me" (Genesis 21:6). And Christ shows what this power is for. In the garden He prayed, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee: remove this chalice from me; but not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36). All things possible, and He chose the will of the Father.
Anagogical sense
Abraham believed in a God "who quickeneth the dead; and calleth those things that are not, as those that are", not considering "the dead womb of Sara" (Romans 4:17, 19). The God who gave life to a dead womb and flesh to His Son in a virgin will give life to the dead: what was impossible with men at Mambre and Nazareth will be done for all the just at the last day.
The Fathers
St John Chrysostom, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 1:36: "Mark the discretion of Gabriel; he did not remind her of Sarah, or Rebecca, or Rachel, because they were examples of ancient times, but he brings forward a recent event, that he might the more forcibly strike her mind." St Bede, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 1:37: "So it was then, lest the virgin should despair of being able to bear a son, that she received the example of one both old and barren about to bring forth, in order that she might learn that all things are possible with God, even those which seem to be opposed to the order of nature."
Warrant
Patristic. St John Chrysostom sets Gabriel's sign against the barren mothers of old, Sara first, and St Bede draws the lesson that nothing is impossible with God (both in the Catena Aurea on Luke 1:36-37). Checked in the Greek: Gabriel's ouk adynatesei para tou theou pan rhema answers the Septuagint of Genesis 18:14, me adynatei para to theo rhema, with the same verb, the same "with God" and the same "word"; Matthew 19:26 keeps adynaton and para theo. Luke does not name Sara, so the grade rests on the Fathers, not on a citation. The cross references agree: OpenBible's readers join Genesis 18:14 to Luke 1:37 with 109 votes and Luke 1:37 to Matthew 19:26 with 188. The verses came to the site from Dunk's reading of Romans 4:21 and Matthew 19:26.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 489.
The verses
Genesis 18:12 · Genesis 18:13 · Genesis 18:14 · Luke 1:36 · Luke 1:37 · Luke 1:38 · Matthew 19:26
