and all who get the news will laugh with me! - Genesis 21
There’s just something funny about the Lord announcing to Sarah and Abraham, their 30-year AARP membership pins notwithstanding, that they will soon be parents to a child---the beginning of an impressive, promise-shaped family. Sarah looks at herself in the dim mirror, then down on her dresser at the fading retirement photo of Abe, and secretly snickers before the Lord.
Stuttering Moses gets the call to speak to Power. Empty-nest Hannah is promised a bouncing baby boy. Jonah, running from the Lord’s demand to love unlovely neighbors, gets a lesson on unmerited favor in the briny stomach of a fish. The Lord walks Ezekiel down to the Pile-o-Bones cemetery for a theological discussion about new life. Teenage Mary discovers via angel-gram that she will push salvation into the world. Let’s just say that Peter was not named “rock” because of his top-of-the-class IQ, yet the risen Jesus decides to build the church on him. And the guy the Holy Spirit conscripts to plant the seedlings of Jesus-shaped communities all around the Mediterranean basin? The same dude who, beforehand, quite drunk on his own religion, attempted to uproot the Easter movement before it spread like the kudzu he would later water.
The Bible is the best joke book going.
For that matter, there’s something hilarious about the Lord co-opting a bored, depressed, and wayward teenager into the business of preaching the faith “once delivered to the saints.”
Sarah and Abe and Moses and Miriam and Hannah and Jonah and Mary and Peter and Paul: They are all waiting for the resurrection, laughing it up in the lobby. In that way, the gospel of Jesus is like a good joke. If someone has to stop snickering in order to explain it to you … Well, never mind.
Sarah and Abe and Moses and Miriam and Hannah and Jonah and Mary and Peter and Paul: They are all waiting for the resurrection, laughing it up in the lobby. In that way, the gospel of Jesus is like a good joke. If someone has to stop snickering in order to explain it to you … Well, never mind.
Says Paul: If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. - 2 Corinthians 4
I wonder, where is the Christ-shaped laughter in your testimony? What’s funny about the Father calling you “saint” by including you with the Son? What unlikely part of your pilgrimage will the Holy Spirit turn on its happy head?
I wonder, where is the Christ-shaped laughter in your testimony? What’s funny about the Father calling you “saint” by including you with the Son? What unlikely part of your pilgrimage will the Holy Spirit turn on its happy head?
(As you ponder all of that, would you mind going down to the Dollar General to pick up some baby diapers for Sarah and Abe? They need all the help they can get.)
