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Why We May (and Should!) Laugh Together at Christmas
Christmas is just plain hilarious. Not the secular kind with Tiny Tim or elves playing tricks, but the in-your-face Christian version. The hilarity began a lot earlier, back when the angel told Abraham that his 91-year-old wife Sarah was about to have a baby—and she laughed and laughed.
Then the angel said, so let’s all remember that laugh and call the baby Isaac/Laughter. That was catching, and when baby Laughter was born Sarah said, ‘God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!` (Genesis 21, The Message). Old man plus old woman plus the Lord equal Laughter, marvelously hilarious!
The Lord enjoyed that too and did it again, this time with old man Zechariah and old woman Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptizer. Then it became Mary’s turn, not herself an old woman, but a woman pregnant without any man’s help, at all.
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy— the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” (Luke 1)
Two women with impossible pregnancies—of course they needed to be together. Their babies were together too, so Elizabeth’s baby Johnny jumped for joy! Joy, not laughter this time, but how would an unborn baby laugh anyway? Those women are so together with the Holy Spirit with them! What they share so much in common is just recognizing that nothing will be impossible with God, and their common trust in that ‘fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.’ Impossible pregnancies, but they are pregnant! God can do anything, over that they rejoice and laugh together—and then laugh some more.
The Lord can and will do what he promises. Is what why Sarah laughed too, as she came to understand that? Even though his promise is over the top?
Then Mary sang and Elizabeth listened:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
‘He has filled the hungry with good things:’ we’ve seen that before. That’s so close to what Jesus himself went on to say, ‘those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be satisfied.’
The Holy Spirit gave Jesus those words, but didn’t he learn them from his mother Mary too? Who do you think are those proud rich people Mary sings about? Aren’t they the people who hate to hear that nothing will be impossible with God? If that were really true, how great would all their success stories be? What would be left for them to brag about? If God really can do anything at all, without the kind of money and skill and talent I have, how can that be fair? How in the world could real life work, if humble poor people turn out to be the winners?
I’m getting more and more sure, that intentionally rejecting that way of thinking is what’s on Mary’s heart, soon to be on her Boy’s heart too. If you’re low enough down to ask God for help, he’ll give it to you. He gives babies to old women, and his Beloved Baby Son to the world lost in darkness. That’s who the Lord is and he shows himself that way again and again. Doesn’t he? Now there’s the gospel of God, pure and simple. It’s so unexpected to our proud hearts, so encouraging to our weak ones—it is indeed all we need, for life and for godliness, isn’t it? What more needs to be said, or to happen?
Only that once again we too are called to ‘imitate the incarnation,’ as Warfield said. Is your life predictable? Are there things you can do that will guarantee success? Or is just your being totally incapable the way your life is? Is being humble and dependent upon the Lord enough? We can learn from Sarah and Elizabeth and Mary—and from Paul. Hear him in II Corinthians 12:
I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses— though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
When I am weak, then I am strong.
When I am too old, then am I pregnant? When I don’t know a man that way, then am I pregnant with the Savior? I think so.
Soon Mary and Joseph with Jesus will have to run for their lives, as Herod is out to kill all those little kids, two and under. Down the road, thirty years later, Jesus will stand up in the synagogue and show how the prophecies about the Messiah are about him—and everyone in his Nazareth home town will try to throw him off the cliff. Dark days are ahead, all the way to Gethsemane and Calvary. But right now is the time to rejoice and laugh over the incredible way the Lord really means what he says, and does what he intends. Right now is a Nehemiah 8 time, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Right now at our Christmas, we all need to laugh first, together. Who would have thought it, really, how weak we are and what the Lord will do through us, so amazingly, so laughably amazingly?
Mary sings out to magnify the Lord. When you sing along with her on how weak and needy you are, then our Lord Jesus does get bigger and bigger, doesn’t he?