The Last Laugh

Do we laugh on Easter Sunday? Isn't it too serious for that? When Easter falls on April Fool's Day, maybe we can look at Easter as a trick that God played on Death -- a trick that loosed us all from Death once and for all! I think that this just might be the case...

Today is an odd combination of days: it’s not only Easter Sunday, it’s April Fool’s Day, too! Those two days don’t seem to belong together, do they? While Easter Sunday is the most joyful, triumphant day in the whole Christian year, April Fool’s Day is another kind of day altogether, a day when people play all kinds of silly tricks on one another. I can’t help but remember the days when I was a young mother; and on April Fool’s Day, my daughters would tell me, “Mommy, your shoelace is untied!” Then they would laugh and laugh; because, of course, it wasn’t untied at all. I would laugh, too, and say, “Oh, you tricked me!” even though I knew exactly what they were doing. April Fool’s Day laughter is best when it is silly laughter that doesn’t hurt anybody or anything. Other times, though, April Fool’s Day laughter is embarrassed laughter because a prank has worked really well, and the victim has fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. But all too often, the laughter is scornful and jeering because the prank is cruel, and the victim is ridiculed. That kind of April Fool’s Day laughter isn’t pleasant at all.

But there is another kind of laughter that is very different from April Fool’s Day laughter. It floats on the breeze of Easter morning; and it isn’t silly or embarrassed or scornful. Easter laughter is the deep, delighted laughter that bubbles up from the very foundation of our souls. Easter laughter is laughing and crying all at the same time because we can’t believe our good fortune. Easter laughter is laughing with such joy that our shoulders shake and our stomach starts to hurt and our eyes get all squinty and tear-filled because what we thought was just a crazy dream has turned out to be true, after all!

Easter laughter started with Abraham’s wife Sarah! You remember Sarah. She and Abraham had waited for years for the sound of little feet toddling around in the nursery. After all, God had promised Abraham that he would have a son! But time went by, and no child was born. Sarah eventually needed to buy hearing aids and dentures, and Abraham’s footsteps became very slow. Sarah finally threw away all the catalogs for baby clothes and nursery furniture, and gave up all hope that she would ever need them. One day, though, God dropped by for a visit and told them that their baby was finally on the way. Abraham just politely smiled behind his hand at this ridiculous idea; but Sarah was listening to the conversation from behind the door, and her hearing aids were working very well that day. The idea of Medicare picking up the tab for the maternity ward made her laugh so hard that her dentures fell out and rolled across the floor. Have a baby? At her age? She probably thought that this was God’s idea of a joke – and a very painful one, at that! Sarah’s laughter might have been scornful on that long-ago day; but when that baby was born, her scorn turned into Easter laughter. Sarah and Abraham named that baby Isaac, a name that means “laughter.”

The very best Easter laughter, though, waited for more than a thousand years after the time of Sarah and Abraham. We didn’t hear it until Death thought that he had finally defeated even God! You know that story, too. After Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, Death welcomed him to the realm of the dead with a sneer and a mocking bow. Death locked the door behind them and put the big, fat key ring back on his belt, saying, “Make yourself at home! You’ll be here for a long, long time!” And then Death celebrated with all the demons in Hell, because he finally had Jesus in his cold clutches: Jesus, the one who hadn’t fallen for any of the Devil’s temptations and cast out demons from their victims. The Devil hadn’t been able to capture Jesus; but Death had defeated him at last. So Death and all the demons in Hell ate and drank and laughed the scornful, jeering laughter that the chief priests and the Roman soldiers laughed while Jesus was hanging on the cross. In fact, they celebrated so much that when Death finally went to bed, he slept all day Saturday and didn’t wake up again until Sunday morning! When Death finally opened his eyes, he had a roaring hangover; and something didn’t seem quite right. He groped at his belt to make sure that his key ring was safe; but, to his horror, it wasn’t there! Death hurried to his prison to make sure that all the dead were still securely locked in; but when he arrived, he saw the very last one of them dancing out the prison door on their way to freedom. And there stood Jesus, casually twirling Death’s key ring around his finger. Death grabbed for the keys, but he wasn’t nearly quick enough. “Oh, no,” said Jesus, “These keys belong to me now,” and he turned and followed the dead out of the prison. While Death was sleeping off his celebration over here, Jesus had taken his keys and freed all the dead over there! That’s why we hear Easter laughter floating on the breeze of Easter morning. It’s the laughter of all those who are finally free from the clutches of Death. It’s the laughter of all those who have been saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. It’s your laughter and my laughter!

But we don’t always laugh, do we? We’re so often like the women who came to the tomb on Easter morning and poked around in its dark and dust and musty air, when all that time Jesus was out in the sunshine, filling his resurrected lungs with fresh, sweet morning air and enjoying the song of a meadowlark. We insist on mourning Jesus’ death, when Christ is risen! Why in the world do we mourn? If Death couldn’t keep Jesus in a tomb, why do we think that anything else can keep him there, either? Nothing in this world or the next can keep Jesus in that tomb, not violence or hate or sickness or suffering or famine or accidents or dictators or terrorists. Our world is certainly full of tragedies, and we weep as often as we laugh. But the good news is that weeping isn’t the end. Through God’s love, Christ has defeated everything that might cause us to weep.

The women who went to the tomb on that first Easter morning couldn’t wait to share their joy with Jesus’ disciples. And while the others didn’t understand what had happened right away, when they met the risen Christ themselves, they laughed, too. God’s plan is that everyone, everywhere will eventually join in that Easter laughter. After all, the one who laughs last, laughs best; and God has gotten the last laugh! So let’s go tell everybody that because God played the very best April Fool’s joke on Death, Death’s power is gone, once and for all. Because Christ is risen, we will be, too! And that, my friends, is no joke! Thanks be to God!