“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” April 27, 2025
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
Psalm 150
Revelation 1:4-8
Acts 5:27-32/ 1
John 20:19-31
First of all, for those who are disappointed that Easter is over, I have good news! Easter – or the season of Eastertide – is just beginning! And for those who are thankful to see Easter over and done with, well…take heart. Take heart because we are now moving into a time that is not only important, it is critical to how we define ourselves as believers of Jesus Christ. That being said, the season of Eastertide, which began at sunset on the eve of Easter Sunday, will continue for 50 days and will end on Pentecost, the day we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost falls on the Sunday of June 8th this year, so we have lots of time to sing the hymns, eat the chocolate, and more specifically, to study and perhaps to rethink what it means to worship the Christ resurrected.
But, of course, the Eastertide season is not without its traditions. This 2nd Sunday of Easter is often referred to as Holy Humor Sunday. Now this is not a recent thing. According to Ralph Milton, the origins of Holy Humor Sunday go back hundreds of years as a way of celebrating God’s resurrection victory over Satan. The idea was to laugh at Satan who had been outwitted by God. You see, the medieval church believed that Satan could absolutely not stand laughter, At least not genuine laughter. If you laugh at the evil one, they claimed, then he has no power over you. And even though our theology has become a bit more sophisticated over the years, I can’t help but think they were on to something.
In fact, I’d venture to guess that there are many churches today that still dedicate this, the 2nd Sunday of Easter, to nothing more than telling jokes – the cornier the better. And I confess that I was tempted to do the same, but in the course of looking through volumes of bulletin bloopers and stories of the priest, the pastor, and the rabbi who walked into a bar, I decided to take a pass. By the way, what do you call a trout that wears a top hat and a bow tie? ‘Sofishticated.’ Oops, I guess that one just slipped out. Well OK, but, In the spirit of levity, I’ll confess that I couldn’t get the story of Thomas out of my head and, believe it or not, I managed to find a good bit of humor in it.
We know the story well: the disciples are holed up in a room behind locked doors for fear of the authorities. After witnessing the gruesome death of Jesus, they could only figure that they were next and so were keeping a low profile. So there they were, all huddled together, when somehow Jesus is standing before them saying, “Peace be with you.” Try to imagine the wide range of emotions that went through this group at seeing this man they all believed to be very dead, yet there he was – very alive. He showed them the marks on his hands and side and gave to them the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Not a normal day by any means.
Thomas was out that day, but later when the disciples told him they had seen the Lord, it gets comical. Thomas, true to his reputation, doesn’t believe a word they say and gets a bit dramatic, saying, (vs 25) “Unless I see and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” , drama, drama.
And so it is that we all get a good chuckle when a week or so , later, Jesus appears again, and this time Thomas does indeed see for himself.
It would be the ultimate last laugh if it weren’t for the fact that the story
of Thomas speaks to our disbelief so clearly. Far too often, Thomas’s story is our story as well.
Now, all of a sudden, it’s not so funny and we are left wondering, “Without concrete evidence, how can our faith – our resurrection faith – make any sort of a difference? How can our faith cause this to make any sense?” The answer came to me in the writings of John the Evangelist in our reading today from 1John. 5:1) “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
So, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. Could this be right? We believe a little, we believe a lot. We get mad at God, we are humbled – and through all this, through the ups and downs, we remain born of God. And as children of God, it just comes natural to care for the children of God even when they drive us up the wall, even if we don’t understand or agree or see eye to eye, for this is the love of God: the awesome love of God that lives in us and shines for all the world to see . But the real clincher comes in verse 4: “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world
And this is the victory that has overcome the world,—our faith.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes
that Jesus is the Son of God?”
So, who is it that overcomes the world? Who is it that can rise above the noise and the nastiness that the world seems to dish out on a regular basis? Who is it that can find peace when there is no peace in sight? John tells us it is the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. I would like to offer my two cents’ worth by saying that if we truly wish to overcome the world; or dare I say, if we really want to conquer the world, a good place to start might to profess that it is Christ and Christ alone who rules this world and we would be showered with blessings if we only acknowledged this simple fact. It’s funny, but it seems to me that the key is to quit trying to run the whole show and let Jesus the King take charge. It’s worth a shot. After all, We can’t seem to get the hang of this ruling thing. Surely, the son of God and the son of man would qualify. After all, he rules forever, he rules forever.
So now, in the spirit of tradition I would like to share with you one story for Holy Humor Sunday that is appropriate for the times.
A man, his wife, and his cranky mother-in-law went on vacation to the Holy Land. While they were there, the mother-in-law passed away.
The undertaker told them, “You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here in the Holy Land for $150.”
The man thought about it for a while and told the undertaker he would just have her shipped home.
The undertaker asked, “Why…. why would you spend $5,000 to ship your mother-in-law home when it would be wonderful to be buried here and spend only $150?”
The man said, “A man died here about 2,000 years ago. He was buried here but three days later, he rose from the dead.”“I just can’t take that chance.”
Amen & shalom
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