6th week of Eastertide: Sarah our Mother

 We are children of Sarah,

   the free woman. (Galatians 4:31)

I pretty much had it down that, by faith, we are children of Abraham (Ga 3). But, this morning, reading the Epistle to the Galatians in Eugene Peterson’s The Message, it struck me that we are also “children of Sarah, the free woman” (Ga 4)—Abraham the father of faith; and Sarah, the mother of freedom.

It has to do with Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that sets us free from religious scruples. Sarah is our example of what the Holy Spirit brings—a life lived in freedom. Funny how we can’t think of Abraham without Sarah or Isaac without Rebecca or Jacob without Rachel; or, faith without the Holy Spirit. The Bible never tires of telling us of the beauty and grace of these matriarchs. So too, there’s something beautiful and graceful about life in the Spirit.