​The first Sunday after Easter has been referred to, in some traditions, as “Bright Sunday” or “Holy Humor Sunday”.  There were traditions in Greece where the entire week after the first Easter Sunday was just one huge party.  Joy for life over death! The resurrection of the Son of God! Triumph over evil!  Bavaria was known to celebrate the “Risus Paschalis” (“God’s Joke” or “the Easter Laugh”) in the 15th century. “[T]he supreme joke God played on Satan by raising Jesus from the dead. {Christine Longhurst – from her blog}
 
More and more pastoral circles have been talking about and offering “Holy Humor Sunday” since the mid 80’s. Some churches celebrate it on the 4th Sunday in Lent, “Laetare Sunday”. Laetare means “to rejoice” in Latin and comes from the traditional entrance for the Mass on that day, from Isaiah 66:10:   Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her.”
 
So there has been a day dedicated to laughter and joy for centuries, but somehow more and more churches have lost touch with it, perhaps even fear it.  Pope Clement X officially outlawed the Risus Paschalis in the 17th century.
 
And yet, laughter and joy is so important to the spiritual experience of knowing God and being with each other.  “Joy” is in the Bible 335 times!  “Rejoice” – 230 times! And “Happy” 87 times!  Jesus’ first miracle was providing wine for a wedding party. He also said we shouldn’t worry numerous times! He said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10b  He was often getting criticized for having too much fun!  And little children wanted to be with him – how many times have we had to try to coax children to not be afraid of someone, and these children were drawn to him – not because he was a sterile, serious, and frightening – but because he filled them with joy and love and trust! 
 
So why should we not have ONE Sunday in the church year to go all out and celebrate humor!!?!!  There is something truly vital about laughter. And creative!  Old jokes just aren’t as funny as new jokes and the creative living brilliance of a good current joke can be a new creation – a joy – an insight – all things we contribute to God!
 
I am offering on April 30th a Holy Humor Sunday.  It is a week off, but the youth were serving on that Sunday, and they did an absolutely wonder-filled job!  So I put it off a week. We will be celebrating Easter all through May, so joy is a part of the experience for all of May as well!  And next year, we can plan it long in advance and have lots of participants!  But for this Sunday, it will be a mini intro – a dip into the humor pool! ;-) 

The Easter Season
 
As many of you probably already know, Easter is not just the Sunday where everyone dresses up as best they can, goes to church, smells the white lilies, sings: “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” and then goes home to find Easter eggs and baskets.  Easter is a church season which last 7 weeks!  EASTERTIDE!!! And yet, every Day is Easter! 
 
O that we could know, as Christians, that we can live in the assurance and trust that we are a part of the power of the resurrection.  I have heard people often say they wish Christmas could be all year around, but rarely do people want Easter all year around. 
 
I do understand that.  Christmas is presents and warmth and party and hope in the darkness.  Christmas is a special highlight marking the dreariness of the long winter nights beginning to get shorter.  But Easter all year around means we can be a part of the true power and meaning of the resurrection!  And that we are.  As a Christian Church (Disciple of Christ) we have communion every Sunday, which means we are Easter people. People who remember the suffering that Jesus did and are grateful that God gave this man to us, so that we know God empathizes with us when we suffer.  And we know that we can be risen again in our lives, just as Jesus showed us in his resurrection. 
 
From my sermon on Sunday:
according to “Scientific American” this is what happens in a cocoon:
First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out. But the contents of the pupa are not entirely an amorphous mess. Certain highly organized groups of cells known as imaginal discs survive the digestive process. Before hatching, when a caterpillar is still developing inside its egg, it grows an imaginal disc for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly or moth—discs for its eyes, for its wings, its legs and so on . . . Some caterpillars walk around with tiny rudimentary wings tucked inside their bodies, though you would never know it by looking at them. Once a caterpillar has disintegrated all of its tissues except for the imaginal discs, those discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to [form all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth].
 
So, before a caterpillar can become a butterfly, it has to allow itself to suffer a tremendous amount of loss. Loss physically and loss of itself.  It will never be able to walk around on all those legs and eat leaves like it used to.  But the hints of who it would one day become were always within it, even in the egg.  And before it could develop those wings to fly and the proboscis could sip the sweet nectar from the flowers, this crawling leaf eating creature had to dissolve. 
 
This is what we are promised, through Christ, when we suffer on this earth, that even as human beings we can become good and loving and compassionate human beings anew.  And through that compassion and unconditional love and non judgment of all others, we will experience the wings of joy and the nectar of sweet love!  Both human and godly!  This is what Jesus came to this earth to share with us, this is what Easter is all about!  God is love!  Jesus is our Savior from hopelessness!  Life is about Joy!  We are witnesses and we are the Embodiment to all the possibility for goodness that this earth knows!  May this year bring us all the sweet, sweet nectar of hope and the wings of Bliss!  AMEN

​I am writing my first blog as Pastor of 1st Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Morehead, KY. In fact, it is my first blog altogether!  I have often thought about writing one, but coming here as offered me this opportunity, and for this I am grateful.  For so many things that this church offers I am grateful. 
 
It is an amazing thing when 2 parties find they want to be joined in some way ~ when one party realizes that the other has something which in some way sparks a desire to be with each other more.  There is a sense of unity which seems to be just waiting for realization.  There is such a variety of bonding in all our human endeavors. There is the personal friendship bond, the lovers bond, the business bond, the land bond, the bond with your pets, the spiritual bond . . . It seems that most humans crave and experience from somewhere deep inside, a desire for more than our own soul. 
 
I wonder if the concept of “us all being made in God’s image” is not one way to define that drive toward unity. It is as though we are craving to be made whole in our creator.  Have you ever walked in nature and just been so overwhelmed with the beauty that you ached inside?  Or you come home from a long day and your dog greats you with such longing that you temporarily are transformed out of your drudgery and into pure joy?  Or you look at your beloved and lose track of where you end and the other begins? These are moments of transcendence – moments where the veil of the sacred has been removed and we glimpse God. 
 
This is what being a seeker is all about ~ we seek to transcend our one soul and unite with as much of God as we can.  In seeking transcendence we cannot stop to close off our hope of knowing more of God by claiming we can judge the other.  All we can honestly do as seekers is to acknowledge the God in the other, and for that, our lives will be rewarded with so much AWE.  This is the preparation that Lent offers us – a time to seek God, and to transcend our human experiences – so we can better understand what happened when Christ overcame death!  WHAT A TRANSCENDENCE!  What a unity! 
 
When we Disciples say, “we are a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world” we are saying we are doing our best to discover the God in everyone, in our earth, in our pets, in even our enemies!  We are seeking Transcendence!  It is our human craving and our Savior’s call to us!  May your Lent bring you unity and transcendence!
 
 

 

(As I write this we are between the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight games in the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament.  This is not a reflection on any team, or coach, or the Dribble Drive or Zone Defense.)  

Currently there are 14 young men, a bevy of trainers and coaches and support staff, and a few others who are pursuing a 40-0 record in the NCAA Tourney.  But what I hear, consistently, are many others who apparently are pursuing it with them.  Their words do not indicate a pride or a delight or a sort of larger team spirit.  Their words seems to say that they themselves are actually playing these games:

"Arkansas was pushing us into the paint"


" I don't see why Harrison is playing so listlessly.  We need him to buck up!"


"We need to start Ulis."


"Our free throws will kill us!  We've got to make better shots!"


"We're almost there!  We've got 36 games behind us, with 4 to go!"


So, a couple of things:

~ the sense of community and connectivity is wonderful.  But only 14 guys are playing.  No one who is calling into the radio shows is.  And trust me, I'd wager 95% of those who do couldn't hit a free throw in front of 25,000 people if their life depended on it.

~And all too often - if for some reason the record is not a 40-0 - it will become about 'Them" and what 'They' did wrong.

And maybe it's only in Kentucky that such an analogy works, but all this reminds me of Palm Sunday.  

"We need to make sure there are plenty of palms available"


"What is up with Peter? Why isn't he with the rest of us, standing firm and strong?"


"We need a better looking donkey than that!  What will they think of us?"


"We can do this!! Look at the crowd!! They love us!!"


Until the Garden, and the Arrest, and the trumped up Trial, and the trip to Golgotha.  Then it would be "Them" and "They".

And then comes Easter.  We can love and  follow and witness and spread the word and serve others and sacrifice and die to self.  But, again, it's nothing WE did.  We can take no credit for it.

Scripture tells us Jesus WAS RAISED.  It was done unto him.  By God.  Imagine.  Just imagine.  Jesus going from darkness to light, from pain to wholeness, from partial to complete, from everlasting to everlasting world without end amen.  For the world.  For all of time.  And it's not about what we do, but what God did.  And does.  And will continue to do. Pause for a moment, and be very very thankful that it's not up to us.  Pause and be thankful to God.