“The First Laugh”by Greg Smith-Young (Elora-Bethany Pastoral Charge)

A Reflection for the Sunday of the Resurrection.

1st Corinthians 15:1-8a, 20-26, 50-58 April 1, 2018

Read the Scripture by clicking here.

When I realized that April Fools and Easter are the same day! . . . I got a bit excited. Ifthere is any day for hilarity, it’s the day Jesus defeated death.

I think Jesus had asubtle sense of humour.

Though there will alwaysbe someone whomisses the point.

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Or, those who try keeping Jesus’ resurrectionan abstract, philosophicalproblem.

(Really, if it truly happenedit is intensely person.for each of us.)

Yet even those charged with keeping the tomb safely closeddid not succeed.

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Because Jesus has a way of showing up alive.

Jesus shows up, and he’s alive! We just heard Paul say so in his letter. He was writingabout people for whom Jesus’ resurrection was in their living memory. He listed folks whosaw Jesus alive at different times, in different groups, even large crowds.

Jesus gets the last laugh. But his is not a sneering laugh: “I told you so!” Jesus laughs withdelight, and gratitude and wonder. He is so excited: for you, for us, for everybody, for allGod’s creation.

No one saw the actual moment when Jesus resurrected. No one saw him leave the tomb.Artists have imagined him coming out with a calm pleasure. I wonder if he was breakingout and bursting free. Grave wrappings, no longer required, falling to the ground, as heraced into the New Creation. Laughing. Singing!

O Death, where is thy sting?O grave, where is thy victory?

IIDeath stings.

Last week, my father-in-law was going to see his cardiologist, who can be a doctor doom-and-gloom specialist. Dad was not looking forward to it. I said, “What’s the worst the doctorcan say? That you’re a day closer to dying than you were yesterday?” Of course, that’s

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true of all of us. We joke about things that are causing us anxiety. A toddler jokes aboutpooping. A teenager jokes about sex. As we get older, we might joke about death . . . andpooping and sex.

We joke, and we tremble.

Death is our inevitable finality. As long as I’ve known, I’ve been “me.” The reality that,someday and then forever, I won’t be . . . is incomprehensible and chilling. I will beforgotten, because everyone I’ll ever know will go the same way. We will all inherit whatJohnny Cash called our “empire of dirt.”1

Death stings.

Contemplating my own death is surreal. Still living after others have died as all-too-real.We all lose people. “Lose” . . . there’s a euphemism! “Lost” suggests they might be found.We know better. Seventeen years later, I still can’t get my heart around that I’ll never knowmy own Dad again. That “never” is an obscenity.

Death stings.

What really disgusts me is how we use death, and try to make it our ally. “If we can’t beatit, join it!” we seem to say. So we together — through our governments, corporations,gangs, churches — we presume the power to decide who lives and who dies. We arm,shoot, bomb, gas, execute, using death for our power. We calculate kill-ratios and gamblewith acceptable losses, always with the lives others. If it’s the “wrong” sort of person whobites the dust, we’ll even cheer. Cheer a death! Really! Whose side are we on?

Death stings.

But Johnny Cash sang . . .2

O Death, where is thy sting?O grave, where is thy victory?

1 A line from the song “Hurt,” written by Nine Inch Nails and covered by Cash.2 These are the first lines of the chorus of Cash’s “I Corinthians 15:55.” It’s on the album American VI: Ain't

No Grave, released in 2010. This is one of the last songs Cash wrote before his death in 2003.

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IIIRemember I imagined Jesus laughing when he resurrected, but without sneering. Eventhose who condemned and killed him, he did not disdain them.

But Death! Death is the enemy. And Jesus laughed in its face!

In the Scripture, Paul picked up on this and mounted his own mockery of death.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

Paul borrowed the first part from the prophet Isaiah:

. . . [God] will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples,

the sheet that covers all nations. He will swallow up death forever.

The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.He will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.3

3 Isaiah 25:7-8.

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The second part, Paul borrowed from another prophet, Hosea.4 Johnny Cash thenborrowed it from Paul.

O Death, where is your sting?O grave, where is your victory?

It’s a taunt song. A victory cheer. A mockery in the face of godless mortality.

Jesus is not about compromising with Death. He is not about coming to terms with Death.He is not about accepting Death. He destroyed Death. He defanged it. Detoxicated it.

De-stung it.

Death was sure it had won, once and for all, when the Son of God gasped his last.

. . . But listen! What’s that? A rolling stone? And laughter!

IVWhat do you wear to your resurrection?

You see, it’s not just that Jesus was raised. That was only the beginning. Finishing withJesus’ resurrection is like standing to applaud when the orchestra has only finished thefirst movement. Which, I’ve discovered, is too early.

In the Scripture, Paul compared Jesus to the first piece of fruit you pick in a season. It’sso good. You know the coming harvest is going to be great.

4 Hosea 13:14. Paul freely adapted the words, probably from the Greek-language Septuagint translation

of the Hebrew Bible, to fit his purposes.

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Jesus was the first. He broke down Death’s door, so all of us, all his people, all his creationcan be resurrected.

So what are you going to wear?

I had suggested to the couple that they make their wedding rehearsal a casual affair.Peter (the groom) took it to heart. He came right from the garage, where he’d been workingon his rig. He was modelling a striking ensemble of grease-stained jeans and tatteredblack Def Leppard t-shirt. I imagine it will be all the rage this season! “Rage” might be atiny bit strong to describe Gina the bride’s reaction when she saw him. A tiny bit. Forgetwhat the minister said (it happens) . . . Peter was not dressed for the occasion! Smartly,Peter went home and came back, changed. (Twenty-one years later, they’re still married!)

Think of it like clothing. When God resurrects us, body and soul, what we’re styling now simply won’t cut it. As I am now, I’m falling apart in tatters and threads. The resurrected“Greg” who God will make me into, won’t be. As I am now, I’m really low-status. God willraise me in Jesus’ glory. I am weak. The resurrected me will have power. Now, I’m drivenby my sorrowful soul. Resurrected, it will be spirit-life that moves me.5

Me, my flesh-and-blood self — this ordinary, corruptible, decaying human existence6 — I’m not suitable for the wedding. Resurrection is about transformation. God makes us fit:body, soul, spirit. God makes us right. Starting with Jesus, and because of Jesus.

How? I don’t know. But if God is the Creator of such a magnificent cosmos, the mysteriesof which we are only beginning to understand . . . if God has crafted such a wondrousmyriad of people, who are terribly messed up, yet whom God treasures . . . if God is theGod of justice, and God will not let God’s beloved be cruelly condemned into Death’s hand forever . . . if God is God, then how will resurrection happen? And what will it be like? Andwhat will we be like? And what will our world be like?

I don’t know, but I can’t wait to see.

VAnd to laugh.

To laugh with Jesus.

5 My re-phrasing of 1st Corinthians 15:42-44. For a discussion of soma psychikon (soul-driven body) and

soma pneumatikon (spirit-driven body), which are sometimes misleadingly translated as “physical body”

and “spiritual body,” see N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003),

348ff.6 Ibid, 359.

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No, he didn’t have the last laugh on Death.

He had the first. So we can laugh too.

O Death, where is thy sting?O Grave, where is they victory?O Life, you are a shining path

And hope springs eternal, just over the riseWhen I see my redeemer beckoning me.

This is the Good News of Jesus. Thank God!

Cartoon Credits:

Jesus Making Bunny Ears artist unknownHope You Kept the Receipt Cuyler Black Saint Schrodinger artist unknownTomb Service Cuyler Black“Good Morning” Cuyler BlackInsurance and Acts of God Cuyler BlackHe’s Behind Me artist unkownI’m With Stupid Cuyler BlackDeath Surrenders Rick McKee, in the Augusta Chronicle