A TIME FOR LAUGHTER: The First Easter
Easter is a good day to laugh. Why not? God laughs. We are made in His Image, so shouldn’t we laugh? Think of the predicament those Roman guards faced as they awoke on Easter morn. To fail in your duty was to be guilty of a capital offense. And to allow a condemned prisoner to escape from his own capital sentence was to assume his punishment yourself. The Roman guards did not laugh that morning. They knew they were to face death now themselves.
Saturday night must have been a cause for mirth among them. (There may have been as many as 200 soldiers present. The High Priest and his pals were more than a little desirous to have heard the last of this troublesome Carpenter from Nazareth. They were taking no chances of His followers stealing His body and making the preposterous claim that He was alive again.) The soldiers were probably having a party Saturday evening. What could be easier duty than guarding a dead guy to assure He doesn’t escape.
They were probably laughing at Caiaphas and the others in the priestly families. You can hear them kidding around. “These crazy Jews. HahaHaha…Afraid of a dead guy! Imagine that! What if Caesar ran the entire empire like these Jewish guys? Posting guards on cemetery watch everywhere to make certain the occupants don’t escape?” More laughter.
Some where probably drunk. But the soldier who stood at the foot of the cross and had witnessed the divinity of its Victim would not have been laughing. Maybe the soldiers who had gambled for His paltry bits of clothing were among them and one of them wearing His seamless coat against the cold.
“Pass the vino, Guido. I don’t think the Guy in the tomb is gonna run away.” More laughter.
But it is now God’s turn to laugh as the Bible says He does in Psalm 2 when He derides the Kings and mighty men of this world when they plot against the One Who flung the stars into the night sky like they were dust. His greatest work, the redemption of sinful men was completed. The destruction of Satan and all the enemies of good and the Author of all good is sealed. Their time is very short. The horrible harbinger of sorrow and tears, Death, has been forever conquered and those loved friends and relatives who have fallen asleep …over the ages …will soon be clothed again with renewed flesh and garments of righteousness to live again. The Seed of mother Eve has struck the death blow to the head of Satan and his power will soon be no more. Death has died and eternal mirth is the order of the day! The eternal day!
