You know what the Sunday after Easter is traditionally called? Low Sunday. OK, I’ve got a multiple choice quiz for you. Why is the Sunday after Easter traditionally called "Low Sunday?" Is it (A) because after the high of Easter, people, especially the pastor, are exhausted and sink into a "low," (B) attendance on this Sunday, after all the C & E Christians go back home, tends to be low, (C) the offering is minuscule, or (D) in contrast to the "high" ceremonies of Easter, the liturgy for this Sunday is more ordinary and "low."

Well, unfortunately, all of the above is usually true, but the tradition of the name "Low Sunday" is from (D), the liturgical answer. I’m thinking we should start a new tradition. And, in fact, there’s an old tradition that has been revived in recent years, and we can get on the bandwagon. Holy Humour Day.

Holy Humour day has a long history in various Christian traditions that has been celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. It goes back to the 1200's in the Orthodox traditions, and it spread across Europe, where it was celebrated for about 500 years. Unfortunately, this Easter laughter was prohibited by Pope Clement X in the 1670’s and in the 18th century by the Holy Roman Emperor. Then in the Protestant Reformation, many reformers – a very serious bunch of people -- attacked the practice. I mean, worship’s supposed to be serious business, right? What rot! Our worship IS serious, but "serious" should never mean without joy or laughter!

And at the root of this Holy Humour Sunday is the idea of God laughing in the face of evil and death, and pulling the "great joke" on Satan from the tomb. The way it was celebrated was that the priests would put funny stories into sermons, and sometimes the congregation would play benign practical jokes on one another, and on the pastor, like stealing the sermon notes, and everyone would have a good laugh, symbolizing the Easter laughter that comes as the devil tries to keep the doors of hell locked against Christ, acknowledging that the Resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate joke on Satan and all the forces of evil. It’s a testament to the God who, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 2:4, "sits in the heavens and laughs." And as you can imagine, the practice was probably a welcome reward to the faithful - something joyful after all those serious Lenten sermons.

So, rather than treating this as "Low Sunday" then, in all the senses of that word, today, while not quite characterized by the immediacy and energy of Easter Day itself, is a continuation of the celebration we began last week of Jesus' triumph over evil and death. We still sing Easter hymns. We still celebrate resurrection. We can still get marshmallow Peeps, and now they’re even half price! Most of all, we can start a tradition of celebrating some Easter joy throughout the Easter season, and...... This can be our First Annual Holy Humour Sunday. Next year, with a little planning and advance warning, we can dress up and wear our Easter bonnets again, and celebrate with joy and thanksgiving and laughter!

See, I'm guessing when Christ rose from the dead, he smiled. I think he may have even laughed. You know that picture of "The Laughing Jesus?" That’s how I picture Jesus upon exiting the tomb. The ancient scholars of the church even had a fancy Latin name for that – risus paschalis – the Easter laugh. Latin’s not my strong suit, so I just think of it as a sort of a divine "nyah nyah."

Now, laughing is good for you. Laughter releases tension. Laughter can bring on a lightness of mood, a creative burst, a positive outlook, and usually does us a lot of good. The Greek philosopher Aristotle reckoned that you take your first laugh some time after your 40th day on this earth and only THEN do you become completely human. The Navajo hold a first laugh rite as soon as a baby laughs. They sing and dance over it.

There’s some acceptance in scientific circles that laughter may reduce stress, stimulate your immune system, and make you more alert. Heaven knows we need more lerts! You know it’s funny how surprised many were, when in recent years, through the studies of endorphins and stuff, doctors could tell us our bodies are physically healthier when we laugh. Well, we and our scientific wisdom!!! Sometimes it’s a few beats behind! I mean cripe……a few thousand years ago, the biblical writer penned a proverb that says: "A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Duh! Without laughter, even our bodies don’t do so well. Laughter, like resurrection, is redemptive. So I try to take my laughter like vitamins. I hereby publicly confess that I go to the comics section of the paper first every morning. And I love watching the Simpsons, and try to get a dose of it almost daily.

Laughter puts us in touch with a well of living water deep inside us. You know how it just bubbles up? Unfortunately sometimes laughter passes quickly in and out of our lives like Burma Shave signs. Our society still has an ambivalent attitude toward the humorous. We hold people like Wayne & Shuster, or the Kids in the Hall, in high esteem, but we’re sometimes suspicious that a light heart is a sign of a lightweight mind.

I think the trouble is that humour is truly the enemy of authority. That is why I’m so sure Jesus laughed at the Resurrection. It’s the ultimate poke in the eye at death and its power and authority. If we could learn to accept the Easter laugh of Christ it might be the best medicine we could apply to our lives.

It was St. Paul who said, "If any one among you seems to be wise in the world, let them become a fool. It is only in being foolish that one can really be wise." There was a strong tradition of "fools for Christ" for several centuries in Europe. Clerics would bray like donkeys, and dance in the sanctuary. I’m not going to bray or dance (much), but I can be a complete fool for Christ. It’s not such a bad thing. Maybe we’ve gotten too serious. We need to hear and appreciate God's grace in Easter laughter!

How else can we respond to the incredible Good News of Jesus' resurrection? Our joy, however, isn’t cheap grace. It’s not superficial optimism that glosses over the pains and struggles of this life and refuses to wrestle with the questions and doubts that test our faith. The reality of suffering in our world still looms large. It’s there. It doesn’t disappear when we laugh. But when we laugh, we affirm that it doesn’t have the last word. Like death doesn’t get the last word on Easter.

I’m not sure we believe that with all our hearts sometimes. Have you ever looked at the faces of some Christians? Scowls. All the time. Graziano Marcheschi puts it this way in a piece he calls YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT: I met a man who said, "Christians are people who suck lemons." "You might be right," I said. But after I thought about it I said, "Christians, really, are people who suspect that on the third day what rolled the stone away from the entrance was a sudden burst of laughter from inside the tomb." HOLY HUMOUR SUNDAY IS ABOUT THAT LAUGHTER! Easter laughter recognizes that the resurrection is comedy of the best sort, the most unexpected reversal of expectations.

You know, if you want a real Easter laugh, you can’t beat Sunday School kids. A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal, its throat was very small The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell? The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."

And then there was the four-year old prayed, "And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."

And the Bible’s funnier than you think! All through it it manages to reveal lots of humorous stories, or stories of laughter. In Genesis Sarah roars with that "Somebody's-lost-it" kind of laugh when she hears that at 100 years of age she’s going to have a baby. That is, until she has one, and called him Isaac, which means laughter. I guess God got the last laugh there. Or because God knew the whole neighbourhood would be giggling at the old geezers when they saw them with Isaac in the stroller.

The New Testament has fun stuff too. Some of it is hard to spot at first. Take Jesus' illustration of someone trying to call attention to a tiny speck in a neighbor's eye while a whole log is hanging out of his own eye. Elton Trueblood wrote a book entitled The Humor of Christ, inspired by that passage. He says he was reading that story to his four your old, feeling very serious, when suddenly the little boy began to laugh. He thought it was so funny for a man to be upset about a speck in another person's eye, but unconscious to the tree sticking out of his own.

Or there’s the time when Jesus was talking about a camel through the eye of needle! Now think about that for one minute. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase NO WAY, Jose! I’m pretty sure when Jesus said that to a 1^st century audience, they laughed. We’re supposed to, too. But we can be so like the Pharisees whom Jesus mocks. Far too often, we religious types take ourselves and our work and our world so seriously. And I suspect, more often than not, it’s our seriousness –– not our laughter –– that gets us into trouble. How many times in history do you think the church split because people were laughing over the joy of the resurrection? I don’t think so.

You have a kind of odd bulletin insert this week... light bulb jokes and bulletin bloopers. I mean how serious we can be about our religion? WAY TOO SERIOUS SOMETIMES! Or how about this one: A man was stranded all alone on a desert island for many years. When he was rescued they found he’d built three buildings on the island. "What are these three buildings?" the rescuers asked. "This one is my home and the second one is my church." "And the third building?" "That's the church I used to go to!"

Telling jokes is so much more fun than preaching. But I do have a point to them. In each of those jokes, I’m reminded that so often, we end up focusing on what we think church is about – and it’s usually some often some form of being pompously religious, or it’s about the building and what goes on here or doesn’t, or it’s about the people. Well you know what? That’s not what faith is about. There’s a difference between being religious ands being faithful… and being faithful is about belonging to and loving and serving this crazy God who turns the world upside down. It’s being connected with that crazy God, like the vine to the branches, and finding in that connection ultimate joy!

And when we laugh at these jokes, we laugh at ourselves, and the absurdities the power of sin and death and suffering create in our lives, and we thank God that the laughter of Easter promises neither our absurdity nor our brokenness will get the best of us.

How else can we respond to the incredible Good News of Christ’s resurrection? You see folks our celebration of Easter which is really celebrated EVERY SUNDAY you know… our Easter celebrations say that when Christ came forth from the tomb a whole new world was made available to us… and new power and new hope and new joy! Even as Jesus rose from death to life SO CAN WE! And that should make us smile because WITH OUT A DOUBT NOW EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE! Easter is about God laughing in the face of evil and suffering and death and despair! So laugh! Holy laughter gets the last word!

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