If there is a time to weep on our journey, there is also a time to laugh.
Psalm 126 expresses laughter as a response to grace when beyond all expectations God has restored and healed. Recall how laughter was an essential part of the beginning of our journey of faith. When Abram was 100 and Sarai was 90, when it was physiologically impossible for them to have a child, Sarah gave birth to Isaac, or laughter. Laughter is the birth of promise in the face of the impossible.
In our own journey of faith, especially when we feel we have come up against a wall that we cannot surmount, laughter can help us gain perspective. Remember in the tragic story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isac, when out of obedience Abraham was willing to sacrifice laughter, God intervened to preserve laughter as a critical part of our journey of faith.
Our soul is healthiest when we take God’s promise more seriously than our own efforts and keep our ability and our importance within perspective. The TV program Mash used humor in a variety of manners to help maintain sanity in what often seemed the insane circumstances of war. The necessity of humor to help us transcend the moment and maintain sanity in the face of craziness has been proved over and over again. It is not accident that some of the best humorists have come from people who come out of experiences of oppression. Think of the humor that has come out of the Jewish experience and that which has emerged from Black humorists.
Next week I will explore this further.
