Last year I was introduced to a new-old custom. Centuries ago the Christian Church would spend the week after Easter caught up in fun and hilarity. They played practical jokes on one another, they had picnics, they danced. All this was to celebrate the greatest joke ever – Christ outwitting death!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. The early theologians called it “Risus paschalis – the Easter laugh”. The new part to the custom is that many churches now call the Sunday after Easter ‘Holy Humour Sunday’.
This Sunday we will be celebrating “Holy Humour’ so I have been having fun this morning as I put together the bulletin and try anticipate what will work on Sunday morning to make the service light and humourous while still meaningful.
I think it is a great idea. So often people assume that ‘church-goers’ are boring, staid and lacking in any sense of humour. I love to laugh and think one of the best attributes a person can have is a good sense of humour. In fact, I know myself well-enough to know that I have been working too hard and am in need of a rest when I have lost my sense of humour.
So now I have a few days to think of some good jokes to tell on Sunday and stories that will make us laugh while we celebrate the cosmic joke that is Easter.
