BRIGHT SUNDAY

The peh Factor

“Seeking balance in a polarized world”

Bright Sunday

It might have just slipped by without your noticing. Many things like that happen either out of ignorance or because our lives have gotten so busy there is no more room on the hard drive of the brain. Well, that is my excuse anyway.

Yesterday, the first Sunday after Easter, the season of the Church year called “Eastertide,” was Bright Sunday. What the heck is that? In a wonderful Christian newsletter called “The Joyful Noiseletter,” we are given this definition.

Churches resurrect an old Easter custom

• Many American churches are resurrecting an old Easter custom begun by the Greeks in the early centuries of Christianity-"Holy Humor Sunday" celebrations of Jesus' resurrection on the Sunday after Easter.

• For centuries in Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant countries, the week following Easter Sunday, including "Bright Sunday" (the Sunday after Easter), was observed by the faithful as "days of joy and laughter" with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus' resurrection.

• Churchgoers and pastors played practical jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, told jokes, sang, and danced.

• The custom was rooted in the musings of early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom) that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead. "Risus paschalis - the Easter laugh," the early theologians called it.

The “Noiseletter” reminds us that

Jesus loves a good party!

• He performed His first miracle at a wedding reception in Cana, turning water into wine. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus tells us that the overjoyed father threw a big party for his returning son. “We are going to have a feast, a celebration,” the father declared, “because this son of mine was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:23-24)

Now please, do not misunderstand me. To talk about joy and laughter and celebration at this time in the life of our world is not meant to demean or degrade those who are suffering because of Covid-19 or its economic or relational impact. It is simply to remind us that joy and laughter should not be solely based on immediate circumstances. The early Christians suffered during the first 3 centuries of their corporate life. They chose joy not in the temporal circumstances in which they found themselves, but, in the eternal promises of God based on the resurrection of Jesus. They chose to do two things. First, they kept their eyes focused on that which was to come: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.” 2) They worked to bring God’s eternal kingdom into their daily behaviors and attitudes: “On earth as it is in heaven.”

With that hopeful purpose, they laughed, especially on the week following Easter. So, to help us laugh I am simply going to share a few of my favorite jokes, some religious and some not, with hope it will help you raise your sight from this virus filled world to the Kingdom of God.

*

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will go out and buy expensive fishing equipment, stupid-looking clothes, a sports utility vehicle, travel a thousand miles to the ‘hottest’ fishing hole and stand waist deep in cold water just so he can outsmart a fish. (Average cost per fish: $395.68)

*******

After she woke up, a woman told her husband, “I just dreamed you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine’s Day. What do you think it means?”

“You’ll know tonight,” he said.

That evening the husband came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it – to find a book entitled, The Meaning of Dreams.

*******

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, age five, and Ryan, age three. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. “If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, “Let my brother have the first pancake; I can wait.”

Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus!”

*******

My grandmother, who lived in Tucson, was well known for her faith and her lack of reticence in talking about it. She would go out on the front porch and yell, “Praise the Lord!”

Her next-door neighbor would shout back, “There ain’t no God!” During those days, my grandmother was very poor, so the neighbor decided to prove his point by buying a large bag of groceries and place it at her door.

The next morning, Grandmother went to the porch and, seeing the groceries said, “Praise the Lord!”

The neighbor then stepped out from behind a tree and said, “I bought those groceries, and there ain’t no God.”

Grandmother replied, “Lord, you not only sent me food, but you made the devil pay for it. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!!”

******

A minister told his congregation, “Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark 17.”

The following Sunday as he prepared to deliver his sermon, the minister asked for a show of hands. He wanted to know how many had read Mark 17. Every hand went up.

The minister smiled and said, “Mark has only 16 chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.”

******

A Sunday school teacher challenged her children to take some time on Sunday afternoon to write a letter to God. They were to bring back their letter the following Sunday.

One little boy wrote, “Dear God. We had a good time at church today. Wish You could have been there.”

******

A highway patrolman stopped a man and said, “I’ve got to give you a ticket. Your taillights are out.”

The man said, “OH!! How terrible.”

The highway patrolman said, “Now, settle down. It’s not that bad. You can get it fixed.”

The man said, “You don’t understand. I want to know what happened to my new, $60,000 boat I was pulling.”

******

A local congregation had just completed its new church building just before Easter. One of their goals in building had been to put in as many of the finer, economic finishes as they could afford. They put in LED lights, no flush urinals for men, solar paneling for savings on electricity. One device they added for health reason were air hand driers in each restroom. On Bright Sunday, someone snuck into the restrooms and put this sign on each dryer:

“Push for a short message from our Pastor.”

*

On Easter, the worst that could happen, death, was defeated. The promise of Jesus in the central verse of the New Testament of the Bible is secure:

• 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16 (NRSV)

The phrase “may have” as written in the original Greek means, to have the moment one believes and continue without end into the future. For those of you who believe, you have – right now, eternal life. May the joy of Easter help you begin to live that life today!

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Special thanks two of my favorite books, Holy Humor: Inspirational Wit and Cartoons, by Cal and Rose Samra, and Healing Through Humor: Fabulous Jokes from the Happy Hunters, Charles and Frances Hunter.