This year we get
to witness a relatively rare event.
Easter falls on April Fool’s day!
The last time this happened was 1956, and the next time we see this
conjunction is 2029. So for me and many
others, this is the first time we remember seeing such a thing.
Since Easter
celebrates the Resurrection of Christ, and April Fool’s Day celebrates
practical jokes, one might conclude that there’s not much of a connection
between the two events, even when they fall on the same day. This isn’t exactly the case, however. Many early
Christians understood the resurrection of Christ to be a practical joke disguised
as a ransom paid to the devil. As
Jonathan Burke explains:
According
to the ransom model humanity was held under the power of the devil, until
Christ offered the devil his own life and body in exchange for those he held,
thus ransoming us by taking our place (substitution). Christ tricked the devil however, ransoming
humanity but also taking back both his life and body.[1]
Not many modern
Christians embrace this view, as entertaining as it may be, since it involves
Christ making a shady deal with the devil.
But the idea of Satan victimized by a divine practical joke did inspire
an interesting Christian practice.
In the 15th
century a number of churches could be found celebrating Easter by telling jokes
and encouraging people to laugh. They
called it the “Risus Paschalis”, which is Latin for “Easter Laugh”. Easter was always a time of great joy, but
the introduction of jokes into a sermon was something many of the dower Church
Fathers would have frowned on. And when
the Easter joke telling got out of hand, and the pulpit acquired an ‘R’ rating
(or far worse) the practice was condemned and discouraged.
Recently there
are a number of Christians resurrecting the practice. One group, The Fellowship of Merry
Christians, has been promoting a cleaned-up version of the Easter Laugh
since 1988. Noting that Christians from
the earliest days to the present have seen Easter as a time of unbridled joy,
they say why not laugh! And why not tell
jokes (clean ones)?
Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and
mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn
into joy” (John 16: 20 NRSV). If our
pain has turned into joy, who can fault us for a hearty chuckle?
April Fool’s day
is something of a mystery, and nobody is entirely sure where the holiday came
from. But Easter is a different
story. For Christians, it is grounded in
the greatest upset in human history, when Jesus Christ conquered darkness and
death by rising from the grave. I don’t
see this as a practical joke, but it does give rise to the greatest punch line
in history: “He has risen!”
The 4th
century Christian preacher John Chrysostom mocked the grave in an Easter sermon
with these words:
It
received a body and encountered God.
It took earth and came face-to-face with heaven.
It took what it saw and fell by what it could not see.
Death, where is your sting?
Hades, where is your victory?
Christ is risen and you are overthrown.[2]
It took earth and came face-to-face with heaven.
It took what it saw and fell by what it could not see.
Death, where is your sting?
Hades, where is your victory?
Christ is risen and you are overthrown.[2]
So tell a funny story, go to a
Post-Easter Party, laugh. We share an
Easter faith. It’s not an April Fool’s
joke, but it is our hope, a hope that makes us now and always a joyful
people.
David
[1]
Jonathan Burke, Crucified With Christ:
The Biblical View of Atonement (LivelyStones Publishing) 10-11
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