Tuesday, April 3, 2018

"The Easter Laugh"


            Last year Spring, I went to Canada to see my sweetheart and to meet her family for the first time.  Her teenage daughter Chelsea decided she’d play a practical joke on me with a Kinder Surprise egg.[i]  These are chocolate eggs that are hollow on the inside and contain a prize of some kind.  She carefully split the egg along the seam, removing the toy and replacing it with a cracked egg.  Then she carefully resealed the chocolate shell.  I didn’t know about any of this when she first met me and gave me the treat as a welcome gift.  You see, she knew we don’t have Kinder Eggs in the States, so I wouldn’t know what to expect.  “You just take a big bite of it,” she said, imagining the yolk and white squirting or oozing all over me when I bit into it.  But something told me to be suspicious, and I happened to be holding it at such an angle that the slimy insides collected on the back end.  I bit into the front end of the egg, and nothing happened.  Chelsea laughed and said that I’d ruined her plans, explaining that there was a raw egg inside.  “Hmmm...” I said, “What should I do with this?”  I chased her around the house with it.  Just when I caught up to her and could have dumped it on her, I stopped, tipped the candy to my mouth, and slurped down the raw egg.  It just about made her sick.  She wanted to say, “The yolk’s on you,” but the joke was on her!  Something tells me that April Fool’s Day is going to be big in that family.

            According to Time, April Fool’s Day has several ancient roots.  One traditions says it comes from the “Greco-Roman festival called Hilaria, which was celebrated on March 25. The festival honored Cybele, an ancient Greek Mother of Gods, and its celebrations included parades, masquerades and jokes to celebrate the first day after the vernal equinox.”[ii]  This was traditionally considered New Year’s Day.  But “In the 16th century, the Christian world switched from the Julian calendar, which was introduced by Julius Caesar, to the Gregorian calendar named for Pope Gregory XIII. The change moved the New Year up to January 1. Some historians find another origin for April Fools in that switch, as those still using the Julian calendar were fooled by the new date.”  Alongside these traditions comes the idea that God Himself is a pretty good practical joker.  In his blog, “Go”, Glen Schaeffer writes:

Rev. Weiser observes in The Easter Book that, “In the early days of Christianity, all of Easter Week was one continuous feast… a week of intense happiness and spiritual joy.” Easter Monday is known as the “Day of Joy and Laughter,” “Bright Monday,” “White Monday,” and “Emmaus Day.”)   The Joyful Noiseletter notes, “The custom was rooted in the musings of early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom) that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead. “Risus paschalis – the Easter laugh,” the early theologians called it.” More specifically, some theologians suggest the festival was inspired by the famous Easter midnight sermon of John Chrysostom (344-407 A.D.), who described a vision of Christ confronting the devil and laughing at him.  Quoted on The Joyful Noiseletter website, one pastor noted, “God has a sense of humor. God has the last laugh and the last word. That word is Resurrection in Jesus Christ! He is Risen!”[iii]

Psalm 68:18[iv] says, “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive.”  Ephesians 4:8 quotes this, saying that he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive.”  The idea is that the first “captivity” was Satan, who had us bound up in sin and death.  Then, when Jesus rose from the grave, He pulled a switch on the devil, tying him up in his own chains and leading captivity captive.  In his blog post, “Mouse Trap,” Richard Beck writes:

St. Augustine once compared the cross of Jesus to a mousetrap--crux muscipula diaboli.  "The cross is the devil's mousetrap."  The idea goes like this as unpacked by various church fathers. From the beginning of Jesus's ministry Satan tries to thwart Jesus. But failing to get Jesus to fall into sin Satan ultimately decides to kill Jesus, to just get rid of the guy. (Recall that Satan enters Judas's heart suggesting that the death of Jesus is Satan's idea and plan.) Satan, we know, eventually succeeds and Jesus is killed. Thus, Satan, who possesses the keys to Death and Hades, now "owns" Jesus and has him locked up in Hades.
Satan has taken the cheese. 
The mouse trap snaps.
Because what Satan doesn't know is that Jesus isn't just another human being. Jesus is God Incarnate. In this Jesus is sort of like a Trojan Horse. So when Satan takes Jesus to Hades--Surprise!--he finds that the enemy has entered the gates. There in hell Jesus takes the keys of Death and Hades from Satan, binds him, and then releases the captives. In Christian theology this is called the Harrowing of Hell.
…The mousetrap story suggests that evil, in its exercise of power, will overreach. God, by contrast, by allowing evil to overreach, saves us non-violently, with powerlessness. God is passive, allowing Satan to kill, allowing Satan to use power and violence to accomplish the purposes of evil. On the surface, God becomes the mouse, the dead thing caught in the trap, the one hanging on the cross. God absorbs violence and overcomes it with love. What looks like a dead mouse to the eyes of the world--Jesus hanging on the cross--is actually the power and Kingdom of God.[v]

I wonder—are there situations in your life right now where you feel like you’re on the cross?  Have you felt defeated, manipulated, tricked—like the joke’s on you?  The resurrection reminds us that God turns the tables on the devil.  God gets the last laugh.  God shows that weakness is strength, and tragedy turns to triumph.  It’s been said, “Sometimes you have to play the fool to fool the fool that thinks they’re fooling you.”  This is what God did—and he beat the devil at his own game.  Just as God resurrected Jesus, God can raise you up and lead captivity captive for you.  And you can trust this—no foolin’.




[ii] Ross, Ashley.  “No Kidding: We Have No Idea How April Fools' Day Started.”  March 31, 2016.  http://time.com/4276140/april-fools-day-history/.  February 15, 2018.
[iii] Schaeffer, Glenn.  “The Easter Laugh (Risus paschalis) — Observe Holy Humour Sunday.”
[iv] Scripture quotations taken from the KJV.
[v] Beck, Richard.  “Mousetrap.”  Blog: “Experimental Theology.”  May 14, 2002.  http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/05/mousetrap.html.  February 15, 2018.

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