I Can Laugh

Worship and laughter

“All joking aside, now it’s time to worship.” Those were the words of a lay leader after sharing the announcements (and a few funny comments) during the Sunday morning service. I’d been thinking about doing a post on laughter, so her statement caught my attention.

I understood what she meant. The announcement time, which really couldn’t be described as worship, was over. Now we needed to focus on God with reverence and humility. But I wondered, can’t we worship and laugh at the same time? Are we sometimes expressing our worship of God in our laughter?

Several years ago John, a young relative, was going through a tough time. I naturally felt his stress and sorrow and frustration. One day, he received some much-needed financial help in the form of a check. He told me that he was taking it to the bank to cash it, but he was a little nervous about walking out of the building with all that money in his pocket.

So he took a few hefty buddies along with him. He asked them to wait in his car while he went inside. When he came out of the bank, if anyone seemed to be following him, his passengers were to jump out and look mean.

He entered the bank. There, three people ahead of him in line, was a friend in upper management in the organization that John worked for. (What are the odds of that happening???) The manager offered to wait for John to complete his transaction so they could walk out to the parking lot together and have a brief chat.

They left side by side. Approached John’s sedan.

Suddenly three car doors flew open and a group of athletic young men burst out, glaring at the manager menacingly. He looked startled, then alarmed, muttered a quick goodbye, spun around, and hurried off. They all got back inside and broke into hysterics. John immediately called me and told me what had happened.

My laughter in response to the situation ministered to me in a special way. As I blinked back a few tears, I was praising God for the stress relief. Most of that relief came through the unexpected check, but the humor of the situation also helped. I was worshiping Him in that moment. Could my laughter itself be considered a part of that worship?

The benefits of laughter

Laughter is refreshing. It’s good for us. For many decades, Reader’s Digest has included a regular feature titled, “Laughter: The Best Medicine.”

According to a Mayo Clinic article in their section on stress management, “Laughter helps you take in oxygen-rich air, which stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles. Laughter also increases feel-good chemicals called endorphins that your brain releases.” It “fires up and then cools down your stress response,” helping you to relax.

It may also provide long-term benefits for the immune system, “make it easier to cope with tough situations,” and help you “connect with other people.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote in her poem, “Solitude” (1883), “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone.”

Being serious

Where do I hear the most laughter today? Among Christians.

About twenty years ago, I was invited by a group of friends to see the movie, The Bucket List. I was told it was a comedy. I wasn’t thrilled with the premise, but I knew I could use a good laugh.

There weren’t many of those. The two main characters, who were both terminally ill, spent far more time facing serious issues and engaging in personal conflicts than joking around. From what I’ve seen, that’s been the trend in modern movies: What used to be labelled as drama, with a few funny moments thrown in, is now considered comedy. Not in my book.

Our current culture is far more serious than it was when I was younger. Everything is a crisis. Perpetual outrage is encouraged and inflamed by influencers. Anger is considered the best indication of how much someone cares. Even where there’s humor today, how much of it is hateful—biting, cutting, intended to hurt?

We’re not made to carry that kind of weight around. Anger and hatred destroy. Laughter revives. Filmmakers recognize this when they intentionally include comic relief in even the most serious movies. In real life, if that relief doesn’t come from lightening up (including laughing) people will turn to the excessive use of sex, drugs, and alcohol to find it. A perfect setup for the increase in deaths from despair—drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide—that we’re seeing today.

Why do Christians (in my experience) laugh noticeably more than the culture as a whole? Shouldn’t we be taking life as seriously as everybody else does?

We face much higher stakes—those with eternal consequences. The Bible never mentions Jesus laughing. When I did a word search for laugh on Bible Gateway, there were negative uses in the list of verses, as well as positive ones. 

Why we can laugh

We can laugh because the Lord draws us into more intimate human relationships than we can have without Him. We can let our guard down among the body of Christ as we laugh. Genuine laughter occurs most often with people who we know will accept us no matter what.

There have been times in our history when Church leaders emphasized solemnity and frowned on lightheartedness. That’s carried over somewhat into my own experience.

Many years ago, I was at a funeral for a woman who’d suffered from a crippling chronic medical condition for a long time. She was a believer. Her passing was, in many ways, a relief. In those days, a “funeral” was a recognition of the pain and grief that accompanies death, not a “celebration of life.” It was mostly serious.

At the reception, I hung around with some friends that I hadn’t seen for a while. We got to talking and joking. Knowing them, and the situation, as well as I did, I didn’t consider it inappropriate. But other people started frowning at us, so we toned it down a bit.

I still remember the thrill and the sense of “of course!” the first time I heard someone say that God has a sense of humor. Humor is a good thing. All good things come from above (James 1:17). Of course He has a sense of humor! The Bible doesn’t come right out and say that, but it can be seen in many passages. It might just be a natural expression of His and our joy.

Maybe the more we hold the dominant American viewpoint that this world is all there is and that we can control it to a large extent, the more seriously we take it all. Then when our efforts to control the world fail (as they always do), the anger and the seriousness increase.

But we as Christians can escape this trap. We do have responsibilities to the world. God expects us to weep with those who weep, to relieve suffering, to stand up for the afflicted and oppressed, to be good stewards of the environment, to share the gospel.

But we know that the ultimate outcome is in His hands. We know that we don’t have as much control over events as we think we do. And we know that there’s more to life than this physical world alone.

My role is to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and guidance, to serve in the areas where God wants me to be. I can’t change the entire world, but I can make a small difference by being obedient to His calling and His laws. He’s the one who will make all things work together for good, not me.

There are times when I can’t see any good coming from a particular situation. But I know, from experience and from His Word, that I can trust Him with it. The weight of the world isn’t mine to bear.

And so I can laugh.