LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

94 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW IX
II.
LAUGHING WITH GOD
Psalm 2:2-6
Humanly speaking, we might say that the day of our Lord’s
resurrection was the morning God got up laughing.
On Good Friday others were doing the laughing, poking fun at One
nailed to a cross. “This is a good one”, they jeered. “He called Himself the
Son of God. Let’s see whether God will save Him now.” “You’re the
Saviour of the world; come on, save Yourself.” Even Pilate had his little
joke at the Jewish leaders’ expense. “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”, is
what he wrote above the cross.
But that was Friday, and with the dawning of the first day of the week
God is laughing. This is the laughter that echoes in Psalm 2: “The One
enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them” (v. 4). The psalm
pictures the rebellion of those who want to cast off the rule of the Lord and
His anointed King; it contrasts this attempt with the grandeur of God in
heaven who smiles at their machinations and proceeds with the
enthronement of His Christ.
The psalm is “Messianic”; that means that it points ahead, beyond its
own time to that of the Christ. Therefore with good reason St Paul refers to
this psalm when he proclaims: “And we bring you the Good News that what
God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us their children by
raising Jesus” (Acts 13:32, 33).
The events surrounding the crucifixion and death of Jesus graphically
portray man’s attempt to rid himself of the all-embracing rule and claim of
God upon his life through His anointed King, Jesus Christ. And in the
retrospect of the resurrection the folly of the endeavour is evident.
But let us not for a minute assume that the only plots “against the Lord
and His chosen King” were confined to a few first-century people. God still
has reason to laugh, for there is indeed a sort of holy hilarity about every
attempt to emancipate ourselves from God. Satan still conspires and
involves us in his conspiracy. We still try to push God out of the driver’s
seat, to whittle Him down to more manageable proportions. Is it not really
somewhat ironic to profess “Jesus is Lord” on Sunday, and then go through
the week as a living declaration of independence from much that such
Lordship might involve
Again and again our Lord in the Gospels calls upon us to see the sheer
folly of our behaviour and the silliness that characterises our lives. We see
such humour in the preaching of Jesus when He tells us to watch the man
with a log in his eye as he goes running with a handkerchief to a friend with
a speck of dust in his eye and says, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it out.” Let’s admit