LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

HUMANN: TWO EASTER HOMILIES 95
it, how silly we are to be so ready to change others and not the least bit
worried about bringing our own lives into line.
Now the point of our text is that what may be humorous to God is no
laughing matter for us. When we try to live our lives without Him, God’s
laughter is a prelude to His judgement.
The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.
Then He rebukes them in His anger
and terrifies them in His wrath. (vv. 4, 5)
For God to laugh at you is a summons to examine your life, to repent the
incongruities of profession and practice.
But there is another possibility: not to be laughed at by God but to
laugh along with God! Easter gives us that opportunity. Christ is risen!
Gone—in an instant, a flash, all the plotting, the devising, the attempt to be
done with this Christ of God. He lives! God has set His King on Zion, His
holy hill.
Christ lives and God smiles at man’s futility, and by that smile invites
us to share in His joy. Forgiveness is from a God who laughs, who for the
prodigal brings out the best robe and the ring and puts the calf saved for the
occasion on the huge spit. The elder son may stand outside and sulk, but
God holds His party.
In the resurrection God laughs out loud so that the sound of His
laughter might put holy hilarity into our lives. We are set free to laugh at
ourselves. We can admit to our foolishness since it is folly forgiven. We can
live confidently and serenely since we know who the King is and that His
reign is a good reign and that nothing and no one can prevail against it.
That is the message of Easter. As Luther has written: “We should,
therefore, learn to rouse our spirits and laugh with our God; laugh at raging
Satan and the world, yes, even at sin and our own troubled conscience. I
shall laugh with God. Even if I am a sinner, even if the punishment of sin is
eternal death, this will not keep me from laughing.”
He who laughs last, laughs the loudest; and God has the last laugh. So
go to the empty tomb and learn to smile at sin, to chuckle at Satan’s vain
attempts, to laugh at death. In view of this joy, the question with which the
psalm begins is a good one: “Why do the nations plan rebellion Why do
these people make useless plots”
Indeed, why
Roger J. Humann is Associate Professor of Exegetical and Practical
Theology at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St. Catharines,
Ontario.