ALL GOD CAN DO SOMETIMES IS LAUGH

There was a picture being passed around a while back, maybe still is, of a smiling, actually laughing, Jesus. I suspect many people were/are scandalized. How dare anyone dare a picture of Jesus laughing! With all the suffering going on all over the world to so many innocent people, the vast majority of them children, how could Jesus laugh? How, in fact, can any Christian laugh in such a world of so much suffering?

There is certainly nothing to laugh at in the face of suffering, especially suffering children. Jesus never smiled in such a situation. In fact, it angered him. In the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel Jesus warns us that we will be judged based on how we responded to those in need: the poor, the naked, the hungry, the sick. There is nothing funny about suffering. It is no laughing matter. Never was. Never is. Never will be.

There is, however, much in this life that is funny, for which we can do nothing but laugh. Just as tears flow spontaneously, so does a laugh arise spontaneously. When something strikes our funny bone, we laugh. It is just as difficult to suppress a laugh as it is to suppress a tear. We should try to do neither. We should do neither. While it is good to control our emotions, our feelings, they arise because of our God-given nature and they should be allowed to be made manifest.

If we can laugh, if we are allowed to laugh, so it is with God. As there are times when we can do nothing but smile, even guffaw with a hearty and loud laugh, so there are times when God can do nothing but laugh.  I have to believe that God indeed laughs. Thus, the closest we can visualize God laughing, I suppose, of a picture of a laughing Jesus. God laughs with us because God can do nothing else but.

Think about the times in our lives when we have done something so foolish that all we can do is laugh at ourselves. We wonder why we did what we did in the first place that made us look and feel so foolish. We may have even known ahead of time that we were walking into a situation where even angels would dare not go, but we went ahead anyway, and we came away looking like a fool. We were humiliated but all we could do was laugh right along with those laughing at us -- one such laugher being God.

God has to have a sense of humor. After all it was God who created us as we are: fallible, weak, sinful human beings who, on occasion, can and do make fools of ourselves. When we do so, God can do nothing but laugh at us and even laugh along with us. And while laughing, all God hopes for us in that we learn from our foolishness. That is all we can hope for ourselves.

We do learn, thankfully. As we grow older, we grow wiser. That does not mean we come to a point in our lives that we never make foolish decisions, commit foolish acts that can only be laughable in hindsight. God's Kingdom has not yet come. Until it does, we will keep God laughing and laughing at us, individually and collectively, until we get the message. Sometimes that's all God can do when it comes to our foolishness. For that we should be thankful and, someday, be eternally grateful.