HOLY HILARITY SUNDAY

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter
April 15, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

John 20:19-31
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.(New Revised Standard Version)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

Easter is God’s great joke on death. What is a joke? It is something that turns the tables on the expected, something that hinges on the unpredictable. The resurrection is comedy of the best sort, the unexpected reversal of expectations. What a wonderful surprise—Jesus isn’t dead as we expected! He is alive!!!

In fact. some have said that the empty tomb is the "banana peel" of the Christian faith. Easter is the cosmic pratfall as God pulled the rug out from under the powers of darkness and death by the resurrection.

We can imagine God laughing out loud on Easter morning. And we can laugh too! We can laugh at all the things that try to hold us back, to snuff out our joy, we can even look death in the face now...and laugh! Because it has no sting, no power over us any more.

Church historians tell us that there is considerable evidence that during the early centuries of Christianity, Easter celebrations went on for days and even weeks. And the tradition of Holy Hilarity Sunday, of post-Easter lightheartedness, goes back a very long way, and is especially rooted in the religious life of Eastern Europe.

Saint Paul wrote that we should all be "fools for Christ." The cross is foolishness to those who do not believe; it is salvation, hope, love, and joy to those who do. Some have argued that April Fool’s Day should really be included in our church liturgical calendar! How fun to know that we can be fools for Christ.

St. Francis of Assisi advised many years ago: "Leave sadness to the devil. The devil has reason to be sad." We don’t! And G.K. Chesterton wrote: "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly!” So, let's fly around with the angels for a moment by way of some levity!

Now, you’ve probably seen the funny church bulletin bloopers like: "the peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict," or "The senior choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir."

Now my favorite Easter joke. Perhaps you’ve heard me tell this one before. If so, please bear with me and laugh loudly at the end.

Three blonds die and arrive at the gate of heaven. Saint Peter meets them at the gate and tells them they’d be allowed in if they can just answer this question: what is Easter all about?

The first blond quickly answers, “I know, I know, it’s when we all eat turkey and cranberry sauce!”

I’m afraid not, says Saint Peter, looking sad.

“Well, I know what it is about,” chimes the second blond. “It’s when you open presents around a decorated fir tree and sing carols and eat cookies.

“No, I’m afraid that’s not it either,” replies Peter, his head downcast.

Finally, the third blond steps forward and says confidently, “Easter comes at the same time as the Hebrew holy day of Passover. The Roman Soldiers crucified Jesus after mocking him and putting a crown of thorns on his head. He was buried in a cave and a large stone was placed over the entrance.”

St. Peter smiles approvingly, nodding in spite of himself.
She continues, “And then, once a year, they roll the stone away and Jesus pops out and if he sees his shadow, we’ll have six more weeks of winter!”

And then, of course, we have some Easter egg jokes:

Q: Why shouldn’t you tell an Easter egg a joke?
A: Because it might crack up!

Q: Why did the Easter egg hide?
A: He was a little chicken

And some Easter bunny jokes:

Q: What is the best way to send the Easter bunny messages?
A: hair mail

Q: What do you call rabbits that marched in a long sweltering Easter parade?
A: Hot, cross bunnies.

Q: What do you call ten rabbits marching backwards?
A: a receding hareline.

Q: What is the difference between an irate rabbit and a counterfeit bank note?
A: One is bad money and the other is a mad bunny!

There’s a one-liner about the Easter story. A neighbor asked Joseph of Arimathea why he gave his beautiful hand-hewn tomb to the followers of Jesus to bury him there. Joseph replied, "Well, he only needed it for the weekend."

Then there are true stories to make us laugh. One pastor recalls a time he as trying to get his congregation excited about Easter and so he invited everyone to sing and shout out whatever would make them joyful such as "Praise the Lord!" or "Thanks be to God!" One small boy had his own prescription for joy; he yelled right out, "I want to go home."

Another story goes that a pastor’s wife wanted to impress her husband by teaching their children to respond to the Easter cry of “Christ is Risen!” by saying “He is risen, indeed!” But her young son got so excited that Easter morning, he ran into his parents room, shouting “ Daddy, daddy, God’s back!”

This morning, we heard the story of doubting Thomas. Poor Thomas, though he went on to do such good work, we always think of him as Mr. Doubtful. The other disciples have seen the risen Christ and so they believe. But they tell Thomas and since he wasn’t there, he just won’t believe that Christ is risen. He tells them: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Perhaps Thomas' real problem was that he was so devastated by what had happened that he could not see the wonderful reversal that God has accomplished in the resurrection. He was blind to the miraculous power of God. Even his friends shiny, happy faces could not convince him. Thomas could not connect to their joy.

No doubt there are some of you here today in the same boat. Life has dealt some crushing blows — financial struggles, loss of loved ones, insurmountable problems, diseases, depression, the list goes on and on. We so desperately want to be Easter people we look around and at times, it looks a lot more like Good Friday. Hope seems to have dried up and our joy is no where to be found.

The message of the story of Thomas is: open your eyes! You might not see it at first, you might doubt it, but the resurrection is real! The resurrection if for you! Celebrate! Go ahead and laugh!

We need this reminder so much. Life can be so hard and we can get so down that we forget which way is up. And then along comes Holy Hilarity Sunday and we are given the chance to have laughter and light-heartedness, for comedy and silliness. We can throw our hearts into celebrating the victory of the resurrection. The psalmist says that God "sits in the heavens and laughs," and I believe God invites us to do join in the heavenly laughter. God wants us to have joy.

So here’s one more bit of Holy Humor to close my sermon. It was following the resurrection and disciples were still scattered about Jerusalem and the surrounding villages. John finds Peter and runs up to him. Excitedly he says, "Peter, Peter! I've got some good news and some bad news."

Peter takes hold of John and calms him down. "Take it easy, John. What is it? What's the good news?"

John says, "The good news is Christ is risen."

Peter says, "That's great! But, what's the bad news?"

John, looking around, says, "He's really steamed about last Friday."

Happy Holy Humor Sunday! Be joyful. Let us never live another day as if Jesus were dead. Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed, so let’s laugh! Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2007