The Laughter of Surprise

The several of us who gather early each Thursday morning have just finished reading C.S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters, a series of imaginary letters that a senior devil writes to a junior devil to instruct him in the ways to tempt and subvert the human who has been assigned to him as his first case.

Of course everything that we would think is positive is negative for the devil, and vice-versa.

It is a great literary tour de force that Lewis was able to turn his mind around and write from Satan's point of view.

In the book there are profound insights into the twisted ways of the devil and his unrelenting assault on us, but there are also times when our only response can be laughter...laughter that Satan can work so very hard to drag us down and sometimes have little results for his work.

The story is set in WWII in England, the time when the letters were written, amid the carnage and fear of aerial bombing that was happening then.

At the end of he story, the young man, the subject of the junior devil's efforts, is killed in an air raid, and yet in his last instant he suddenly sees what the devil has been doing all this time, and we laugh with him as Jesus makes good on his promise to hold onto him despite all those woes.

All that devilish work turned out to be wasted from Satan's point of view, and the senior devil says he will make good on his threat to eat the unsuccessful junior devil.

Satan destroying his own minion; what can we do but laugh?

Scripture points us to such joy and laughter again and again:

Psalm 51 has a very serious subject, David's adultery with Bathsheba and the death, pain, sorrow, and remorse that it brings.

Still, one of the petitions in that Psalm is this: Give me the joy of your saving help again, and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit. And the Lord will do that.

In Morning Prayer we use Psalm 95 to begin each day, whether it is a easy day or a difficult day.

The Psalm-text starts: Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.

In the midst of all the doom and gloom that Jeremiah is experiencing with the destruction of Jerusalem, the prophet gives the word of the Lord that there is more to the situation than sadness and death: In the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without inhabitants, human or animal, there shall once more be heard the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride.[Jeremiah 33:10-11]

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus meets a funeral procession on the way to the grave outside the town of Nain.

It is a tragic situation, a young man, the only son of a widow, has died.

We don't know the circumstances of his death, and that is beside the point; the man is dead.

With no one to help her, the widow will be in danger of starving.

It is truly a time of great grief.

Jesus stops the procession and returns the young man to his prior life, and the story lists two reactions by the people there: (1)great fear, and (2)glorifying God.

--Great fear we can understand when something that strange happens.

--It was also a good reaction to praise God .

But surely there would be more to the praise of God than the serious reflection “God has looked favorably on his people.”

I'm thinking that left unsaid but still present is yet one more reaction: laughter.

What would that young man do when he realizes that death has been thwarted but laugh in surprise and joy.?

Yes, we know that this is not the resurrection since the young man was returned to his prior life rather than taking on the new body of the resurrection; that will come later.

But as people who live in resurrection hope and confidence, we are people who love to laugh, who believe that laughter is a wonderfully life-giving, defiant act that is full of the grace of God.

The early church fathers talked about Easter as the great joke that God played on the devil.

The laughter of the resurrection stings Satan, who takes himself so seriously and cannot laugh joyfully.

He might be able to manage a snort of derision or a smirk when evil appears to win a skirmish, but the free and easy laugh of joy when God overcomes a human problem or turns around a hopeless situation...that is completely beyond Satan.

We can also get at the same point by talking about ethics.

Ethics is not merely a dour following of rules, but much more, an exercise of the imagination, believing that God will make a way where we thought there was none, and by forgiveness enabling us to act better and more boldly than if we were being forced to always do right.

We're free to use that imagination because of Easter, when Jesus came back to what the disciples all thought was a hopeless situation, came back to people who had abandoned him, came back to weak and fearful people...and called them to be salt, and light, and a subversive force in a world that expects that everything is only falling apart and heading for disaster.

What can we do when that expectation is shown to be false?

--Laugh with joy along with the disciples on the road to Emmaus as Jesus opens the scriptures to them and to us.

--Laugh with a hard-won joy that we have encouragement from the witness of the saints and martyrs of ages past and these very days as well, that evil will finally be overcome by Jesus.

--Laugh a wonderful life-giving laugh as we dare to make decisions and try a different approach to a problem, knowing that Jesus will somehow use our bumbling efforts to some good end.

--Laugh in joyful anticipation when we recognize an event as a pointer to the Kingdom of God, events such as a family reunited, a hospital stay that is effective, a man and woman becoming husband and wife under the promises of God, a congregation gathering at the Lord's table, the church persisting under terrible conditions in Syria, Nigeria, Egypt, southern India, and so many more.

--Laugh with relief along with the widow on the road outside Nain, as her son is restored to her, at least for a time.

--Laugh with eager longing that Jesus will do more with us than we can ever imagine doing on our own.

Later today we gather for a picnic.

The grumps will stay away, claiming that it is a waste of time, there are bugs, they're confused as to where to go, someone might get wet in the river, watch out for poison ivy, it is a bother to figure out what to make that other people would like to eat, it might be windy or rainy or too something or other, watch out for splinters, I don't like those people anyway...there are a hundred reasons why this is a stupid thing to do.

On the other hand, it is play, that is, work done for joy, the joy of anticipating that the picnic is another of those pointers to heaven, where everything is play in this way, where everything is done for joy.

A pastor wrote: “One cannot remain a pastor for long without a sense of humor.

The ability to laugh at life's incongruities, to take God seriously but not ourselves, to embrace the strangeness of our people instead of strangling them with our bare hands, this is great grace.

Without humor, a bishop would be an insufferable bore, and a pastor would be in a state of perpetual depression due to the state of the church.

Humor, joy, and laughter are glimpses, on a human scale, of the way God looks upon us from his unfathomable grace.”

And hymn-writer Charles Wesley comes at it yet another way:

The name of Jesus charms our fears

And bids our sorrows cease,

Sings music in the sinner's ears,

Brings life and health and peace. [LBW 559.3]

Let all joyfully say. Amen.

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.