The Death of a Princess: Sarah's Legacy

If Edgar Allan Poe, arguably America's most famous author, could say that the most poetic subject is the death of a beautiful woman, we could almost assert that a truly beautiful woman never dies. Her beauty outlives her and immortalizes her memory. Such seems to be true of Sarah, the mother of Isaac and princess-wife of Abraham, the friend of God (James 2:23) and father of the faithful. Sarah is the only woman in the Bible whose age is recorded at death. Ninety years old when her son Isaac is born, Sarah will enjoy raising the son of her old age for thirty-seven years, living to be 127 years old.

That she was adored of those who knew her is no secret in Scripture. Abraham considered her so beautiful that he feared losing his own life for her sake. This fear, more than once leading to deception, caused Abimelech to blunder into taking Sarah for his wife when she was ninety years old. Without a doubt, Abraham loved Sarah for far more than her physical beauty. We can be sure that he recognized in her a magnetism of personality and a strength of character set worlds apart from the haughty beauty of the Canaanite women around her. Sarah's self-confidence and strong will also served as necessary foils to Abraham's sometimes too-kind forbearance such as we see in his tolerance of Lot and his later futile hopes for Ishmael. More than once Sarah vividly spoke her mind to Abraham, who deferred to her wishes, knowing not only that she was right but that her heart for his wellbeing was faithful and true. After all, how many times had she placed implicit trust in her husband, even when his judgment set her ill at ease? Her respect for his wishes, his wellbeing, and his faith was so exemplary that Peter tells us, evidently from tradition, that Sarah not only obeyed Abraham but even called him "lord."

Not only do we believe Sarah was a godly wife, she must also have been a selfless and wonderful mother, for her adoring son Isaac mourned her death a full three years before being comforted by his own loving wife, Rebekah (Genesis 24:67). We can only imagine the tireless tenderness with which Sarah anticipated Isaac's every need, stroking away his babyhood tears and staying up all night with him when she could barely stay awake. We can imagine her laughing at his toddler tumbles and teaching him to walk, to talk, to pray, and, especially, to wait. And we can only imagine the stoicism of her heartbreak as she prayed for her son's safe return from Mount Moriah.

Sarah's story is not without complications, but if we know anything of the Biblical record, we know that a life does not have to be perfect in order to be powerful; nor does it have to be flawless to be beautiful. One could almost argue that Sarah, like her daughter-in-law Rebekah, is beautiful even in her mistakes. A woman of unquestioned virtue, Sarah lived with years and years of uncertainty, no doubt searching her own heart for any possible reason she had been kept childless for most of her life. At long last, after hearing year after year of God's promises to Abraham to bless the whole earth through his heir, Sarah reached the most difficult decision of her life: she would give her beloved prince to another so that he could have a son. True, this would also ease the stigma of her own barrenness, but we know the pain of her sacrifice by her reaction afterwards when her worst fears appear to come true: she fancies that her husband has turned from her in his affection for his newly conceived child and its mother, his new second wife.

That Abraham had done nothing of the kind is clear in his deference to Sarah's authority to punish Hagar as she wishes. Call this vengeful, as it certainly is, only a woman who has loved deeply and who has waited to the breaking point could feel such pain as Hagar inflicts upon her mistress. Without condoning Sarah's anger, we can clearly see that only the dark side of love feels such pain. All for nothing her practical compromise proved. And yet even in her flash of livid anger towards Abraham, we can picture Sarah as a brave, regal woman holding her head high amid the chaos and heartbreak of her own making. Her love for her own husband is clear, for she absolutely must know one thing: whether Abraham concurs with her handmaid Hagar's disdain for her worth as a woman. But even here, Abraham shows his great love for Sarah by giving her authority not only over her intractable handmaid but also over his unborn child.

Scripture does not divulge the depth of sacred joy Abraham and Sarah share when their long-awaited Isaac is born, but we know that with every glance upon his wife's victorious face, Abraham vows anew to protect her and their son with his faith, his prayers, and even his own life. For thirty-seven years, Abraham and Sarah partner in rearing this promised seed whose offspring will bless the whole world. Meanwhile, in the day-to-day routines of life in Canaan, we can imagine that Abraham and Sarah live in a harmony possible only to those whose beings have truly grown into one flesh.

We can only imagine with what depth of grief Abraham finally parts with his beloved princess, the queen of all his affections and the selfless mother of his "only" son. All the years of dust and drudgery have not dulled Sarah's attraction for him. When Sarah dies, Abraham not only grieves for her the customary ritualistic grief, but he openly weeps for her (Genesis 23:2). His loss will never be restored in this life, and to Sarah's honor he makes his first and only purchase in the Promised Land among the Hittites. And here Abraham sets both a shrewd and a sentimental precedent for all time: he not only purchases a burial place he could have obtained for free but he pays full price at 400 shekels of silver. While it could be argued that Abraham could afford this cost because he was a wealthy man, we do not see anywhere in Scripture today's disdain for the cost of burial or any mindset that we should not waste money on the dead. Abraham's insistence on paying full price for Sarah's grave not only honors her enduring legacy but points to his own and Sarah's faith in the resurrection.

We would do well to pay our own respects to this remarkable woman, who, although she spilled the ink of her own grave mistakes across history's pages, also left her indelible mark on Hebrews' Hall of Faith. The infallible Biblical record gives Sarah her place among the greatest heroes who stopped the mouths of lions, who were sawn in two, and who quenched the fire of idolatry. Sarah's is a faith among the commonplace--the faith to wait yet one more year for the fulfillment of God's long-awaited promise. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Sarah "through faith received strength to conceive seed and delivered a child when she was past age because she judged Him faithful who had promised" (Hebrews 11:11). Sarah's legacy is the reminder that today will not tell the full story of God's faithfulness. We must allow the sun to rise upon tomorrow to hold His promises in our arms, for His mercies are new every morning. Great is the God of Sarah!