LOL that's a Good One!

 APRIL 18, 2022

Isaiah 35:10

10 and those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

How should you celebrate the day after Easter?

With a good laugh, of course.

Better yet, with a party, a really fun party. Far from being a strange, new idea, this is actually a long-standing tradition rooted in good Christian theology and practice.

I am told it began hundreds of years ago. “A monk, was pondering the meaning of the events of holy week, with its solemn observances of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the astonishing, earth-shaking events of Easter. "What a surprise ending," he thought. Then suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, he had a new insight. His hearty laugh startled his fellow monks, breaking the silence of their contemplation.”

"Don't you see," he cried, "It was a joke! A great joke! The best joke in all history! On Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified, the devil thought he had won. But God had the last laugh on Easter when he raised Jesus from the dead."

The monks called it "the Easter laugh." The idea spread rapidly, and the day after Easter became known as a "Day of Joy and Laughter" in Orthodox, Catholic, and many Protestant countries. In homes and churches, it became common to celebrate God's great joke on the devil with joke-telling sessions. It became the custom even in monasteries. Especially in monasteries.


I read just the other day that a group known as The Fellowship of Merry Christians who began to urge churches and prayer groups to revive this very old custom and hold Easter Monday parties or to have Holy Humor Sundays.


That’s a very good idea, don’t you think? Celebrating “the Easter Laugh”, holding a day or a Sunday for Joy and Laughter.



Yet there is a great biblical truth that drives this practice. The Cross, the symbol of Roman torture and execution, a symbol of anger and hate and brutality, is transformed by God into a symbol of LOVE. “Greater love has no one than this, that they lay down their life for another”. The Easter story of Christs resurrection is God’s great exclamation point that emphasizes for us the power of love. This love creates and promises hope, renewal, change and newness. The resurrection becomes a symbol of hope and grace and amazing love.

God is still at work. God works in situations that seem utterly hopeless and bleak before he brings surprise endings and has the last laugh.

So, tell your best joke today! Have a day of Joy and laughter, as you continue to rejoice as people of the risen king!



Nehemiah 8:10


10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to hose who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”