13^th April 2010

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley (Easter Sunday 4 April 2010)

Lessons -- Isaiah 25:6-9; Acts 10:34-43; Luke 24:1-12

The men said to them, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here. He has risen.' (Luke 24:5,6 NIV)

It's laughable really! The tables are turned. Death can't hold the crucified Jesus. The spell of evil is broken, and we begin to hear what Dante once called 'the laughter of the universe'.

If we associate laughter with Easter it is usually ridicule. Christianity is more an object of scorn than the source of laughter. In The Age today, Dale Stephenson, now Senior Pastor at Crossway Baptist Church, tells how he once used to love nothing more than 'bagging Christians'. Speakers at the Global Atheist Convention mocked those who believe in Jesus'
resurrection. The Comedy Festival, now being held in Melbourne, will feature comics taking cheap shots at Easter faith -- Catherine Deveny leading the pack with 'God is B******t': That's the Good News. Sketches that poke fun at pretension in the light of the resurrection will be scarce or non-existent!

Christians are often accused, sometimes with justification, of lacking a sense of humour. Even if we enjoy a good joke, the image of a stern, demanding and humourless God is hard to erase, and rightly the stuff of comedy.

Have you ever wondered how, instead of being the butt of humour, the Church could use humour to poke fun at our comedic detractors? Is there a form of humour which enables Christians to take seriously the evil in the world without taking ourselves too seriously? Is it possible to stand firm in the truth and poke fun at the pretensions of those who are unjust, immoral and irreverent?

The answers must begin with Easter where we may hear the laughter of God breaking through when there doesn't seem to be any reason for mirth and when laughter at Easter is scornful. The soldiers ridicule Jesus by placing a crown of thorns on his head, dressing him in a royal cloak and kneeling before him in mock humility. The crowds, who had laughed with joy when the sick were healed and the sinful forgiven, now laugh at him because he is powerless to save himself. The chief priests ridicule his claim to be the Messiah. And one of the criminals crucified with him sneers at his failure to escape a horrible death. There is a great deal of laughter at Easter -- scornful, spiteful, bitter sarcasm directed at Jesus.

Their laughter only dies down when the figure on the cross dies. The joking stops only when it is assumed that this trouble-maker won't pose further threats to public order or religious devotion.

On Easter morning, however, the silence is broken by a very different kind of laughter. The 'holy laughter' of God is heard. Grief gradually turns to jubilation. Despair gives way to hope. At the empty tomb we hear the faint sound of divine chuckling at the joke played on those who have ridiculed the crucified Jesus.

The story has a most unexpected punch-line! Naturally, we are saddened by stories of good, brave people who are defeated by evil. We understand Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and the women weeping for him. But here we are flabbergasted by the story of a crucified man who triumphs over the authority of the State, the power of religion and mass hysteria. Dead men are not resurrected. 'You must be kidding!' Tell us another one!

Indeed it is a joke, but not an April Fools Day joke as Christianity's detractors believe. In the resurrection of Jesus, God is 'poking fun' at evil by showing in spite of appearances that it doesn't have the 'last laugh'. The resurrection is the punch-line to a story about a crucified man.

The incongruity of the situation is the point of the joke. It silences the laughter of all who mocked Christ's claim to be the life-giving presence of God. The joke is on those who held (and hold) Jesus up to public ridicule!

Yet God's laughter is not disdainful. The God who raised Jesus from the dead isn't a distant Fate unmoved by suffering and evil or a capricious Deity playing cruel jokes on pathetic, hopeless humans. He laughs as One who, knowing what it is to be rejected by those he loves, has forgiven them from the Cross. He does not sneer at sinful humanity. As we saw on Good Friday, he even promises a penitent criminal a place in Paradise where surely there is much merriment at evil's demise! The resurrection of the crucified Jesus shows how ludicrous it is to assume that humans can defeat the goodness and mercy of God.

In the resurrection of Jesus the joke is on evil. The laughter of God mocks our pretensions without treating us with contempt. It makes us glad that evil and our part in it doesn't have the final word.

Peter Craven says that 'the Resurrection is the comic coda' to the crucifixion, a 'coda' being the 'musical piece added after the natural conclusion of a movement' (Oxford English Dictionary). It is a most unexpected postlude which brings a wry grin to our faces.

It isn't always easy to hear the laughter of God in the final movement. We may miss the joke. Often there's little to smile about. War and hunger still kill millions. Others are exploited and abused. The good don't always win. God often seems silent. Events can so overwhelm us that we experience the absence of laughter or mistake it for Fate's 'twisted sense of humour'. We may turn on the Divine Comedian when the joke falls flat.

Sometimes, though, as on the day when the women visited Jesus' grave, it can be heard as a quiet chuckle. When the tomb is found to be empty there is no uproarious laughter. In fact initially they are terrified. They don't get the joke about 'why they are seeking the living among the dead'
(v5). Nor are the disciples amused when they hear the punch-line: 'You've got to be joking, girls'. This is a silly joke -- an 'idle tale' (v11). It is the sort of thing you'd expect from gullible women! Even Peter doesn't yet see the funny side of things , though perhaps his 'amazement' is of the kind that brings a smile to his lips? (v12).

The full extent of the joke isn't yet fully appreciated. That comes later when the 'presence' of the crucified Christ indicates that his 'absence'
from the tomb is the sign of God's victory over sin and death. Only then is the 'comic coda' appreciated and the punch-line greeted with merriment.

The point of the joke has always been debated. Today in the community as well as in the Church, it is common for people (including populist Church leaders), to say that it doesn't really matter whether or not Jesus was raised from the dead. What really matters is that his teachings about the Kingdom of God -- justice, peace, equality, honesty, love and hope -- are still relevant.

Others, like the editor in The Age today, see in it an important symbol of hope which isn't particularly 'Christian' but reaches back to ancient pagan rituals.

If we think that the most important thing about Jesus is his teaching or regard his resurrection as one among many symbols of renewal then we won't get the point of the resurrection joke! We won't see the amusing incongruity between his risen and crucified body.

The resurrection of Christ can only bring 'laughter in heaven' and 'merriment on earth' if death, sin and evil have actually been defeated in him. It isn't enough to say that the memory of the dead Jesus just continued in the experiences and visions of his disciples. Jesus' 'bodily resurrection' (as affirmed in the Apostles Creed), which is more than but not less than resuscitation, is the sign of hope for a 'new heaven and a new earth'. It is a sign to everybody and the whole creation that evil and death have been defeated in principle.

It is a miracle that divine laughter can be heard at all in our fractured world. It is no laughing matter when governments and citizens conspire to pass legislation which mocks God's glorious purposes, makes light of Christ's death and demeans human dignity. It is easy to become discouraged.

Yet even in the face of the sin, evil and death that afflict life, we can chuckle at the joke God has played in Christ's resurrection. In this event, which has no parallel in history, we may now hear the faint sound of 'holy laughter' in anticipation of that time when 'gales of laughter'
shall echo through the universe when evil and death are no more.

Not everybody will get the joke. Like any good joke it can't be explained.
But it must continue to be told because, as countless folk can testify, it can bring a smile to the face of even the most cynical, despondent, hardened or humourless person. As the story of Pastor Stephenson shows, it can turn ridicule of Christ into laughter at the joke played on God's detractors.

It is our happy task as the Church of the crucified and risen Jesus, to tell this joke and so share in the long-running Comedy Festival which brings eternal joy and hope.

Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ shall come again! Hallelujah!

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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.