Laughter

Laughter

At Little Bow, as always, I ran in the morning.  Unlike other occasions, running at Little Bow is marked by a whole lot of 'up', as I run along the road that snakes its way from the coulee floor the level of the prairie above.  As I ran today, I found myself meditating on the akedah, the biblical story of the binding of Isaac.

Do you know how Isaac got his name?  It means 'laughter' in Hebrew.  The little boy was called laughter because his mother Sarah laughed at the heavenly messenger who told her that God's promise to her husband was going to be fulfilled in her own barren womb.  

I wonder if, so many years later, Mary laughed when her own heavenly messenger came to tell her that God's promise to his people was going to be fulfilled in her - of her, through her.  Do you think you would have laughed?  I think I would have.  The narrativist Luke notes that "she pondered in her heart that which the angel had told her" - I laugh out loud at ponderables every day.  I hope Mary was no different.  I wonder if the angel told her to call her baby "Jesus" because he was afraid there was another Isaac in the making.

The story of Isaac, though, is tainted by near tragedy.  Or maybe it's a farce.  An angel tells Abraham "take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him up as a sacrifice to God."  Abraham is asked to sacrifice his only son in order to prove his own love and devotion to God.  But Abraham is ready, and he prepares to do just that.  He takes Isaac, binds him, and prepares to offer him as sacrifice BUT, at the last possible moment, the angel intervenes.  Abraham has proven his faith.

But there comes a time when another Father is called to give up his Son.  But this time, it's not God who demands the sacrifice, not at all.  This time, the crowd does; the leaders do; we do.  All our judgements and hard-heartedness demands that the interloped who dared to proclaim God's love and forgiveness to all should be judged himself, by our own, more rigorous standards.  Because we who love sin more than forgiveness turn instead to God and demand that he sacrifice his Son to prove his love for us.

But unlike God with Abraham, we do not relent.  We are not welcoming of that kind of mercy.  There is no last-minute reprieve.  There is only the crowd, the cross, the crown, and death.  But even the One tied to the altar intercedes: forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Laughter, indeed.

Because I think on that Easter morning, when the stone rolled away from the tomb and Jesus walked out of the gates of hell, the gates of death and to the glory of his Father, I think, I think, that the garden rang with the sound of a delighted Father's laughter; that the Son was clothed in the best robe and given the best seat at the table, while the proud Father looked at his work and beamed.

It is finished, the Son said.

It is finished, indeed.  And may we find at the end the joy of the Father's laughter reveling in the delight of his Son - his only Son, whom he loved, whom he offered, whom he gave, whom he raised, and in whom he delights.  

Heaven is a Father's un-ending joy, ringing out through all creation.