33rd day of Lent

It was cool to spend a few days this spring with my dad, my brother, my brothers-in-law, and my sons at the Atlanta Braves Spring Training. These are memories that all of us will cherish for our lifetimes. One of the things that I enjoy most about these kinds of moments is the laughter. We have a silly family. We laugh at just about anything. But oh, how fun and therapeutic it is to laugh. We laugh at each other. We laugh at ourselves. And yes, we probably shouldn’t do it, but we laugh at others, too.

One of my favorite portraits of Jesus is the portrait of him laughing. I like that image of Jesus because I just know he had to have had many a good belly laugh with those silly disciples. I can just imagine some of their nights around the campfire or at mealtime when one of them would reveal his humanity or reveal the latest pun in Aramaic. Surely there were many moments when Jesus laughed about life.

The Old Testament writer proclaimed that, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10). Certainly he must have had in mind laughter when he thought and wrote of joy. Not all joy is laughable but a lot of it is. Some joy is just for pondering. Some joy is for carrying us through less than joyful times. It is an inner thing, this joy, and yet at times it is an outer thing as well.

While Lent is a somber time of preparation and reflection, it is also a time to look deep within and touch base with the joy that is my strength. Nothing was joyous about my Lord’s excruciating death. But what came as a result of it, is joy unspeakable and full of glory. May it be so.