An Inkling
Last weekend Sarah and I took in “Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage,” a marriage conference led by Mark Gungor. It’s aptly named. I’m one of those who cries when I laugh hard, and by the time we left I needed to wring out my handkerchief.
Mark has a marvelous comic gift, and of course marriage has no shortage of funny subjects, nor of hard truths that need to be spoken. So Mark uses humor like Mary Poppins’ “spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down.”
But I think it’s more than that. There’s something about truth itself that sounds of mirth. That’s because the One who gives truth – indeed, who is the truth – is also mirth-full. And we are made in his mirthful image!
Sadly, along with every other facet of God’s image in us, our mirth has been distorted by sin. And so the heavenly laughter of delight gets twisted into a demeaning laughter of scorn. Witness much of the humor in our culture, which derides and puts others down, pulling us all down in the process. The humor of hell will be such a downer – forever. But God’s kind of humor, even if the occasion is our own foibles and foolishness, lifts us up.
Which reminds me again of Mary Poppins. Do you remember Uncle Albert’s song, “I Love to Laugh”? (Here’s the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx7lz5X2vKk ) The more they laugh, the higher they float, which only increases the laughter. Such will be the mirth of heaven, as we are all lifted up in the Lord’s joy.
Thanks be to God, that in Jesus Christ he redeems even our mirth!
Ha, ha, ha-lelujah!
Keith
