What is the sound of Easter?
My brother Joe shared a true story with me that helped me to understand the sound of Easter. It seemed that three weeks ago it was the second graders’ turn to do the readings at their all school Mass. One of their second-graders who was scheduled to read at that Mass was sick the day before and missed the practice. The next morning her teacher asked her if she would be okay to do the reading that morning. She said, “Oh, yes, I practiced at home.” Her teacher said, ‘I mean, ‘Do you FEEL good enough to do it?” The little second grader said: “Oh, I’m fine, Mrs. Baldwin. It was just MORNING sickness.”
AHH, that’s the sound of Easter.
So, perhaps it is a gift that Easter falls on April Fools day this year –a day when we intentionally try to inject a bit of humor into our world, when we chose to celebrate the gift that laughter and jokes are. And if you think of it, each good joke shares a common trait. It turns the tables on the expected; it is dependent on the unpredictable or unreasonable. And the more unexpected the outcome, the funnier it is.
So, is there an event, an occasion, an incident more unpredictable or unreasonable or unexpected than what we celebrate today? The resurrection of Jesus has been called “God’s practical joke” on those who think this world is all there is. Easter is the day when God laughs out loud, at all the things that snuff out joy, at all the things that pretend to be powerful, like cruelty, cynicism, despair. Easter is the day when God laughs out loud even at death. God sweeps all that away with His wonderful, boisterous, resurrection laughter.
The women who went to the tomb that early morning, did not expect to return rejoicing. They went to finish the job – to do the tremendously sad work of finishing the anointing of the body of Jesus that they could not finish because the Sabbath Day. And there they found that God had rolled away that HUGE STONE called death. And the angel appears to them with amazing words: He has been raised; he is not here! Half fearful, they leave the tomb, but the further they run back to the apostles, the more the message builds up in them. And I imagine them bursting into a room of somber disciples with laughter spilling out, because they could no longer contain their joy. Easter is the ultimate joke that God played upon Satan and the forces of evil who thought they had won by killing Jesus. But God’s laughter could not and would not be silenced.
My friends, in the resurrection of Jesus, WE TOO have something worth laughing about. It could be argued, that every time we laugh, we join in the laughter of God; the Easter laughter that God put in the heart of the universe. Love is ultimately triumphant. Life is stronger than death. Goodness wins. That is what laughter teaches us.
Easter is all about what one of my friends has described as the choice to live a “DEFIANT, INTENTIONAL JOY”. Easter does not pretend that death is not real, that suffering is not real, that all the things that bring sorrow and pain into our lives and world do not exist. The women go to the tomb in that Easter dark because those things are all too real. What they learn from the angels, though, is that death and sorrow and pain are not the final answer. They have been overcome – and the proper response of the believer is to bring the joy of the Living One to all the places in our world that have not heard the good news. That’s defiant, intentional joy. The choice to invite all our suffering and struggling brothers and sisters from their places of death into LIFE!
So, how will you live DEFIANT, INTENTIONAL JOY this season? Will people see resurrection in your face, know it in your smile, understand it in your suffering? In a few minutes, you and I will have the opportunity to make our statement of defiance, our own statement of belief in the resurrection – at the renewal of our Baptismal promises. Let it be the first act in a long chain of defiant, intentional joys!
What is the sound of Easter?
Supposedly this was heard at a convention of funeral directors. One funeral director turned to his buddy during a break and said. “You know, I never told anyone this before, but I always secretly tie together the shoelaces of the dead in the casket. His buddy asked, “Why would you do that?” He said, “Well, if there ever IS a zombie apocalypse, that would be hilarious…”
Now that’s the sound of Easter…
PS – (at the end of Mass – Do you know what today’s headline should read? Jesus ends a grave situation!)