WATCHWORD:
He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. Job 8:21
Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” Genesis 21:6
Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” Psalm 126:2
Meditation:
Laugh, You Saints!
Imagine this: You and a group of friends have made a decision to spend seven or eight days hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail. Making all the arrangements is complicated but finally all the details are worked out and you begin your hike.
As your group is walking along, what are you doing? Well, of course, you’re admiring the scenery and the beauty of the land you’re walking through; the mountains, the Lakes, the forestland. Maybe the weather takes a slight turn and you find yourself walking in the rain, but you’re equipped for that and you find some joy in that very experience.
As you walk along the conversation flows among your group. Maybe you share experiences that you have had with your family, or perhaps it’s something you had heard in a sermon and now something you are seeing inspires you to share. Knowing you and your friends, you probably do a lot of laughing, and singing as you hike along. You find that laughing and singing helps the walking go so smoother as the way is sometimes rough and steep.
Do you have that image fixed in your mind? Now imagine the same thing, but now you’re a disciple with Jesus of Nazareth. You are hiking the Sea of Galilee Trail, visiting towns along the way, a ministry, of sorts. As Jesus, you and your circle of friends hike along what are you doing? Well, you’re doing much the same as you imagined on the Appalachian Trail, enjoying the scenery, laughing, singing, telling stories and listening to one another, especially your friend Jesus. The times in the towns you visited were interesting and provide topics for the next leg of your journey.
I would think that traveling with Jesus and his disciples would have been a powerful and amazing, spiritual experience. When we read the Scriptures we get a kind of one-dimensional picture of who these people were and what they did. Somewhere I have a picture of the Laughing Christ, and it is a mind-opener. In that picture, we see the human Jesus, a three-dimensional man, a man with a sense of humor, a compassionate man. There are laugh and smile-lines, the eyes are kindly and merry and the face speaks loudly that “God is here with you.”
I was listening to a podcast recently by Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest with a marvelous sense of humor. His book, Between Heaven and Myrth, is wonderful, filled with joy, humor and stories that bring laughter. As I listened to Father Jim, I got the impression that what he was describing was the real, human Jesus, approachable and friendly, that is, when he is not upset with the Pharisees and those of us of little faith. You get the impression that He is a real human being who experienced what we are experiencing.
The scribes, the gospel writers who put together the Holy Bible, have inadvertently minimized the day-to-day human qualities that naturally come out when we gather with others. But there was humor and laughter in those gatherings. One of the reasons we don’t pick up much humor is because humor is culture-bound. So, we miss some of the funnies that are incorporated in the scripture that First Century minds found hilarious, fall-down laughing funny. But for us, and it goes right over our heads.
Some of the Beatitudes were so funny to the early Christian and yet we miss it. We don’t see a lot of humor in Nathaniel asking “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”, and yet, in the minds of those disciples, it was hilarious. At that time, Nazareth was an insignificant small town on the border with the hated country of Samaria and, in their minds, of course, nothing good could ever come from there. And how about the joke about the plank in your own eye? Why that just knocked people out, back in Judea, but somehow we take that seriously, even literally.
Have you thought how joy communicates love? You probably noticed how happiness attracts others. Sometimes humor can have sharp edges and helps us find humility. We are often cautioned not to take ourselves seriously and we know that humor and laughing is good for our health, physical and spiritual. One theologian has said that a sign of the Holy Spirit is joy.
What’s the message here? Part is to read the Scriptures with an open mind. Another part is to imagine a human quality to those passages, to those characters. Step beyond the literal, and delve a bit into the symbolic, then let your imagination go just a little crazy when you talk to God. You may find tears of joy in your eyes and you realize that God is truly enjoying the conversation with you. So be it.
Bulletin Board:
We have been a little lax of humor of late, then I came across this little bit of information while doing research for this devotional. Joel Kilpatrick is the author of a fun and insightful book, God, That’s Funny, and is the brains behind larknews.com, a satirical Christian site. He writes, “We all need to be reminded that God is funny. That his humor is on display everywhere and is a key to understanding what he’s doing in our lives, in Scripture and in the world around us. We all need to appreciate that comedy is one of God’s primary languages. God has never been without humor, and if we live in His presence, neither should we.” So, the message? Lighten up, smile, laugh a lot, and look for the humor that surrounds you.
Closing Prayer:
Heavenly father, sharpen our sense of humor and improve our eyesight so we can see the humor and the blessedness of the world you have created. Help us find the joy, humor and laughter in your own words. Instill in us Lord that joy that can simply fill our hearts, that can open our compassion for others so that our very demeanor, Lord, says that we are your children. Thank you. I offer this prayer from the bottom of my heart in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Amen.
