Laughter has been called God's holy medicine –
the ancients thought it to be exercise for the soul.
There is no doubt in my mind that these disciples were happy people when they encountered the Risen Christ.
They must have been laughing and carrying on.
They knew the joke was on them, because they hadn't believed what they had been told.
Today we celebrate the risus paschalis – God’s easter laugh.
The joke is on the devil.
The joke is on all who still think that life is defined by birth and death.
Jesus taught the early church how to laugh:
how to laugh at death.
How to laugh at appearances,
how to laugh in the face of all manner of difficulty.
Today, we remember God’s great surprise –
Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
Luke 24:36-43
After warming up with a series of knock knock jokes - 40-60 in rapid delivery:
State of the church that day:
those first Christians were pretty bleak that first Easter Sunday.
They had witnessed a disturbing set of events.
Their leader, the one to whom they had sworn their allegiance,
the one they thought was going to lead them and the world into a new tomorrow, was tortured, ridiculed, crucified, dead, (for sure,) and buried.
And then, on this third day,
they found the tomb in which he was placed, open, and his body missing -
taken by whom?,
removed to where?,
and why?
They suspected sadism, I'm sure.
The authorities - or some enemies - just wanted to make sure this troublemaker would never be heard from again.
They were afraid.
What did all of this mean for them?
For sure, the authorities would be coming after them now.
What to do?
They gathered behind locked doors - fearing the worst.
And then, all of a sudden, there he is.
Right there in the middle of them.
In the middle of their wailing and gnashing of teeth,
there’s Jesus.
Knock knock.
Reactions to Jesus: !!!!!?????!!!!!
"Hee-haw! Jesus Christ!"
They must have had the biggest smiles
Can't you just see and feel what happened?
"Oh man, you really did it this time!
You really put one over on us!
You got us good! And what about the others?
Just wait until they get a load of this!"
The Risen Christ was the punch line of God's Great Surprise.
The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest surprise in the history of humanity.
Until then, once people died and were buried, they stayed put.
There is no doubt in my mind that these disciples were happy people when they encountered the Risen Christ.
They must have been laughing and carrying on.
They knew the joke was on them, because they hadn't believed what they had been told.
And now, the joke is on all those who refuse to believe.
This is the Easter surprise, the Easter laugh, the Easter joy.
And, far from being so solemn and placid like he is portrayed in so many pictures,
Jesus must have been grinning from ear to ear! – grabbing his friends by the neck, hugging and rustling hair – and what did he say:
“Hey, got anything to eat around here?”
And what did they do:
they flipped him a fish.
Zig Zigler writes that “the most destitute person in the world is the one without a smile.”
This is when the disciples broke out of their situation – no longer were they feeling destitute and downcast.
C.K. Chesterton wrote that “surprise is the secret of joy.”
For centuries there has been a tradition passed on through some of our Christian Orthodox churches for the people to gather on the Monday after Easter to be joyful – to celebrate surprises – to tell jokes and stories – sharing laughter.
And in it all, remembering the punch line of God’s Greatest Surprise.
A church historian has pointed out that in days of yore, every Easter sermon began with a joke.
Somehow, we have misguidedly equated somberism with Christianity.
Clearly, this was not the case in the very beginning.
Those early Christians were so surprised by their Risen Friend that they must have been ecstatic! – totally joyous – completely joy-filled.
Today in many parts of the world, many Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox countries celebrate Easter Monday as a day of “joy and laughter” with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection.
It is called White Monday,
Bright Monday,
Dyngus Day,
and Emmaus Day in various countries.
It is a time for the faithful to play practical jokes on one another,
a time to sing silly songs,
a time to dance crazy steps.
It is a time for clergy and lay people to tell jokes and to have fun.
The custom of Easter Monday and Holy Hilarity Sunday celebrations are rooted in the musings of early church theologians like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa and John Crysostom that God played a joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead.
You see, Easter is seen as “God’s supreme joke played on that old imposter, death.”
The early theologians called it “risus paschalis” – the Easter laugh.
This theme has been passed down through the ages.
Francis of Assisi advised: “Leave sadness to the devil. The devil has reason to be sad.”
Meister Eckhart, a 13th century theologian, wrote: “God laughed and begat the Son.
Together they laughed and begat the Holy Spirit. And from the laughter of the Three, the universe was born.”
Martin Luther wrote: “God is not a God of sadness, but the devil is.
Christ is a God of joy.
It is pleasing to the dear God whenever one rejoices or laughs from the bottom of your heart.”
Easter is the morning when the Lord laughs out loud,
laughs at all the things that snuff out joy,
laughs at all the things that pretend to be all-powerful, like cruelty and madness and despair and evil,
and most especially, laughs at the great pretender, death.
Jesus sweeps them away with his wonderful resurrection laughter.
Norman Vincent Peale wrote:
“laughter sweeps away the cobwebs from the mind.”
Paul talks about a resurrection appearance of Jesus before an audience of over 500 people.
One writer ruminates:
“[Now how would you think] 500-plus people react to an appearance by Jesus, the one who had been crucified and buried?
Would they applaud politely?
(With a proper Presbyterian clap.)
My guess is that 500-plus folks rose to their feed with a standing ovation.
This was the most incredible comeback story of all time.
They would have jumped for joy and hugged their neighbors and probably even danced all around.
These 500-plus folks, because of Jesus, had the best belly laugh of their lives.
Easter had taught the 500-plus how to celebrate.”
We ought to pay attention, don’t you think?
Church historians indicate that there is considerable evidence that during the early centuries of Christianity, Easter celebrations went on for days – even weeks.
This picture on our bulletin is very appropriate for today.
It is an artist’s depiction of the Risen Christ with his friends in the evening on that first Easter Day.
– the story we read this morning.
Today, many churches all over the country are trying to lift up the hilaritas of the Easter season -- celebrating the risus paschalis: the Easter Laugh.
Michelangelo wrote rather indignantly in 1564 to his fellow artists:
“Why do you keep filing gallery after gallery with endless pictures of the one ever-reiterated theme of Christ in weakness,
of Christ upon the cross,
of Christ dying,
of Christ hanging dead?
Why do you stop there as if the curtain is closed upon that horror?
Keep the curtain open, and with the cross in the foreground, let us see beyond it to the Easter dawn with its beams streaming upon the risen Christ, Christ alive, Christ ruling, Christ triumphant.
“For we should be ringing out over the world that Christ has won,
that evil is toppling,
that the end is sure,
and that death is followed by victory.
That is the tonic we need to keep us healthy,
the trumpet blast to fire our blood and send us crowding in behind our Master,
swinging happily on our way,
laughing and singing and recklessly unafraid, because the feel of victory is in the air and our hearts thrill to it.”
Laughter has been called God's holy medicine –
the ancients thought it to be exercise for the soul.
What a great idea, don’t you think?
Laughter is exercise for the soul!
In fact, there is a tremendous body of evidence being
accumulated today in schools from Johns Hopkins to
Stanford University Medical Schools and in countries
all over the world – evidence that supports this ancient idea:
that laughter is exercise for the soul and
actually affects our physical and mental health.
Not long ago the AARP newsletter published an article about how doctors and nurses and hospitals are being taught what we already know: the title of the article is "It's No Joke: Humor Heals"!
You may have seen that movie, Patches.
It's a real story about a real doctor, Patch Adams, and his work to introduce laughter therapy into medical institutions.
A whole field of study has arisen called psychoneuroimmunology –
studying the affects of love and laughter,
the affects of attitude on a person's state of health.
Actually, this is one of the secrets of this church.
Recent studies show that church-goers tend to live
longer and be healthier than others in the population.
This doesn't mean that going to church is like an
insurance policy whereby you automatically will be
rewarded with good health and a long life.
All of us get ill, and we do die.
But, here in church we learn how to live now,
we learn how to love,
we learn how to survive,
we learn how to have the courage to face each day.
In fact, we might should say that is the goal of our
church: to teach us how to live these days of our lives
joyously and lovingly.
Today we celebrate the risus paschalis – God’s easter laugh.
The joke is on the devil.
The joke is on all who still think that life is defined by birth and death.
Jesus taught the early church how to laugh:
how to laugh at death.
How to laugh at appearances,
how to laugh in the face of all manner of difficulty.
Today, we remember God’s great surprise –
and the word for each of us:
Turn to John 15:11 [page ]
Like those early disciples, when you experience the risen Christ – joy is yours.
Paul can say:
“rejoice in all things. Again, I say, rejoice!”
Easter is a time of deep surprise, the surprise of suddenly realizing that God makes all things right in ways we can never imagine.
On this second Sunday of Easter, I hope you can continue to feel the joy of encountering the Risen Christ for a long time to come. Amen.
The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, heard this sermon on Holy Humor Sunday, March 7, 2013.
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