To Laugh, Yes, To Laugh!

The playwright gets much of his theology sideways and it results in an inexorable movement toward a grim ending, but nonetheless, there is something exactly right about several of his ideas concerning the laughing of Lazarus.

In the play, Lazarus again and again infects others with this refrain:

Laugh with me!

Death is dead!

Fear is no more!

There is only life!

There is only laughter!

and Lazarus begins to laugh,

softly at first,

then full throated,

a laugh so full of complete acceptance of life,

so devoid of all fear

that despite themselves, his listeners are caught by it and carried away.

Why could there be that laughter?

What was its basis?

Is there laughter for us?

What does this have to do with the thoughtful season of Lent?

Let's review the Bible story as we just read it together moments ago.

Lazarus was ill,

but Jesus didn't rush to get there.

He was dead, and had been buried four days—there was no question of just being in a deep sleep.

Jesus says, “Your brother will rise.”

Martha replies, “I know, at the last day.”

Jesus: “Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life?”

Martha: “Yes.”

Jesus then goes to the tomb and weeps.

Then he calls out Lazarus, and by his Word restores him to life.

The action is a sign of his power to give eternal life, and his promise to extend that life to us.

We need to be clear on this point:

Lazarus is returned to the same human life he had before.

Jesus' act is not here the final resurrection, but indeed, it points the way to that creative activity of God which will finally put right all brokenness in and around us.

The laugh by Lazarus is a laugh of joyful thanksgiving, and anticipation.

It is right and appropriate.

We can well imagine other kinds of laughter around the scene:

--there might be the nervous laughers, with the forced ha, ha,

as they try to figure out an angle to exploit in this situation.

--there might be also the derisive laughers, who scoff at everyone and everything,

whose snort soon turns to gloom and despair.

Some of the characters in O'Neill's play say:

Lazarus, give back thy laughter!

Death slinks out of his grave in the heart,

so that Ghosts of fear creep back into the brain.

We remember fear!

We remember death!

Forgotten is laughter;

we remember only death!

Fear is god!

Forgotten is laughter!

Life is death!

and Lazarus laughs his full-throated laugh at their gloom,

but a touch sadly that they have missed the reason for joy in even in the middle of the real problems and heartaches they do indeed face.

We're like our kids who demand instant gratification for every wish that pops into their head, (or more likely, was cemented in there by clever advertisers).

Lazarus laughs because of his glimpse of the direction of God's plan, its outcome, and also its present effect.

Eternal life begins not just at death; it begins now.

That is why Jesus speaks as he does to Martha.

Not just pie-in-the-sky someday, but now!

Walter Burghardt packs the theology tightly together in this sentence:

Christ not only has life, he is life ---

because the Holy Spirit,

that Spirit that gives life , is his Spirit;

and this Holy Spirit, this life, this Spirit of life, he gives to us. Now.

In Jesus' teaching, in Christian believing, I die the death that ultimately matters, spiritual death, only if and when the Spirit of life leaves me.

Eternal deathis not the separation of the soul from the body; rather it is separation of the person from God.

Eternal life is the life in which we are engaged now, where and whenever God's promise is made to us.

I am the resurrection and the life says the Lord of life.

He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

And Lazarus may just have laughed with joy.

Oh, yes, he had to face physical death yet again, but now he knows that the promise of Jesus is more powerful than he ever imagined.

It can even beat the final enemy, death.

The very next verses in the Gospel describe the plot against Jesus, how he will suffer and die, but will not be overwhelmed by this suffering.

And so armed with the knowledge we have on this side of the resurrection, we can join in when Lazarus says:

Laugh with me.

Death is dead!

Fear is no more! as he sings in the play.

Yes, we laugh, too!

Our laughter is not a nervous titter,

nor an hysterical cackle,

nor a vulgar guffaw,

nor a derisive snort,

but a laugh of genuine pleasure in the life of the Spirit.

There might be some who think:

“Well, then I must not be a very good Christian, because I just don't feel like laughter right now.
I hurt too much because of this or that sorrow or heartache.

Do not be afraid; there will finally be laughter.

We would hope that laughter in our lives as Christians would not have to wait until we get to the fullness of heaven, and that the laughter stirred up by the Spirit of the risen Christ will be able to break through to us sooner rather than later.

But the Spirit works quietly; it may be that we recognize the Spirit's work only long after a particular part of our life is passed.

We'll not fall into the simple-minded trap of those who say that Christians must smile all of the time;

life is too complicated and painful to expect that to be true.

There are unknown kinds of hardships in front of us in personal health, family, relationships, employment, leisure, finances, national and international politics...... and there is plenty of grimness spread through it all.

But my confidence is in the God who gives hope to hopeless people,

who promises life now and also in the fullness of time,

who extends all of this to us in the drowning death of sin and selfishness in Holy Baptism.

This God in the present tense,

this Holy Spirit,

is the one who gives us the strength to endure personal adversity,

and the courage to recognize how things can be changed inside our one lives, by the action of that same Spirit.

Sin, sorrow, and sadness are with us, surely, but they need not control us forever.

It may only come to us slowly, but it will come.

There is a spot in C.S. Lewis' little book Screwtape Letters where the devil is furious because one of us has gotten away from him.

At the moment of a man's death,

There was a sudden clearing of his eyes as he saw [the tempting devil] for the first time, and recognized the part [the devil] had had in him and knew that [the devil] had it no longer.

As he saw [the devil] he also saw the [the Lord with the host of heaven].

When he saw them he knew that he had always known them and realized what part they ha d played at many an hour in his life when he supposed himself alone, so that now he could say [with a laugh of joy], “Oh, so it was You all the time.”

If not at this very moment,

there will be the day and the time when we can join Lazarus' song:

Laugh with me!

Death is dead!

Fear is no more!

There is only life!

There is only laughter!

If not yet laughter, let us at least join in praise, praise that will in God's good time be seasoned with holy laughter.

Holy God, we praise your Name

and laugh with joy at the defeat of death that thought it had entrapped Lazarus, and us.

AMEN.

LBW# 547 Thee We Adore

Acknowledging especially today the thought of Fr. Walter Burghardt, S.J., and C.S. Lewis.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.