Laughter of God

Jun 07, 1998 by Rev. Christine

Today's talk is about the importance of laughter in our lives. The very essence of God loves to laugh through us. Laughter is a way back to knowing our wholeness. This week I shall give you some background, and next week we shall have open participation in healing through laughter. I request everyone to come with something to share for helping everyone to laugh.

Back in 1982, after having surgery to remove the pins in my ankle placed there to restore a fracture, my mother gave me this wonderful book titled "The Laughter of God" by Walter C. Lanyon. (She had remembered how 5 years earlier, during the healing of my ankle, I would watch TV programs that made me laugh. I found that these programs helped me to cope with the physical and emotional pain.) I would like to share with you from the first chapter of this book, also titled "The Laughter of God."

"God has made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me." Deep in my soul I heard the Laughter of God, ringing in silvery cadences through the timbers of my being, breaking the human bonds and limitations as a strong yet gentle wind in the forest sweeps aside the strands of cobwebs. The hard, fast knots that I had tied slipped loose, and the snarls of beliefs broke free. The river of my human life, frozen by a thousand and one false ideas and teachings, broke joyously into expression and went bounding to the infinite sea of Life, to be lost and found at the same time.

One dark cave of fear after another was illuminated by the light of this laughter, and swampy areas of sick thoughts were dried up instantly. Parched sands of hopelessness and futile efforts were drenched by the living waters, sucked in - absorbed instantly like a wave breaking on the sands. God laughing at me, and my puny efforts to make things happen; to make heaven appear; to attain the Sonship. Not the laugh of derision, but of infinite compassion, a laughter so deep and sweet, so pure and glorious that everything in the nature of struggle gave way before it...

And the glorious laughter rolled on, searching the very joints and marrow of me - dislodging every belief in fear, sickness, or age... The wonder of it kept singing through my soul as veil and veil of belief was rent asunder and new kingdoms stood revealed. Only the Laughter made this possible, for it cleared away all the effort and straining which in its attempt to see God had been halted at the reflection on the surface, instead of gazing into the limpid, glorious depth of Infinity...

When are you going to start laughing the Laughter of God? When are you going to join in the glorious chorus which is already encircling the globe, and which has for its password "It is Wonderful"? You cannot stop this laughter once it is started; you will shatter the belief in disease in thousands as you go along your way - not by a poor, half-hearted way of beseeching God, but with the ringing Laughter of God in your Soul which knows no sickness, sin, or disease, and hence cannot look upon it. And in this very knowledge it will impress the consciousness with the Eternal well-being of the Son of the Living God. The man, if he hear the Laughter, or be willing to hear it, shall break the bounds of his limitations; crash through the gates of brass; shake off the shackles of beliefs; burst through the prison bars of his own making, and find himself free, free, free, and find his soul ringing with laughter and with the song, "It is wonderful."

The author so beautifully has expressed his experience.

Today, I brought the picture of the "Laughing Jesus" that usually has its place in our social building. I believe Jesus Christ knew the Laughter of God, otherwise, he could never had attracted so many people, or healed, or even raised the dead without the inner knowing of the joy of God.

The Bible has a story in the book of Genesis, in which Abraham was told by the Lord that he and his wife Sarah would be blessed with a child. "Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is a 100 years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac. Sarah heard from inside the tent. Sarah laughed within herself, thinking they had wanted children for so many years and were barren and now when they are both old shall have a son."

I like to think that laughter is the gift of God that can make all things new and alive with life. Their son's name Isaac means God Laughs, or laughter. Metaphysically it represents Divine Sonship; the joy of the new birth and new life in Christ.

When Isaac was a child Abraham believed that God wanted him to sacrifice his beloved son on a burning alter. He found out that this was only a symbol and saw a ram within the bushes and chose to use the ram instead. Sacrifice means to make sacred, and a burning alter is to make sacred by the purification of fire. We take our animal or human nature and make it sacred through the fire of spirit.

Another way to see this is the innocense of a child filled with laughter and joy. Our own inner child. As we grow older our inner child so often gets left behind, its needs ignored. We believe that God wants us to be so serious as not to laugh or express any true emotion. Being serious about life, our work and responsibilities, and most of all in practicing religion. This is only a misconception of man's making. Then we discover that joy and laughter, a light heart is the way to heaven. Making our most beloved child sacred. For this child within us is already God - the Divine Son the Christ Child. Its true nature is to laugh, sing, dance and leap for joy. True spirituality is joyous.

In the past, laughing has had a bad raputation. This is illustrated by the following quote by Charles Baudelaire from "The Essence of Laughter" in 1855:

"Laughter is santanic, and, therefore, profoundly human. It is born of Man's conception of his own superiority... It is at once a sign of infinite grandeur and of infinite wretchedness; of infinite wretchedness by comparison with the absolute Being who exists as an Idea in Man's mind; of an infinite grandeur by comparison with the animals.

We have another quote by John Ray from "English Proverbs" in 1670, "Laughter is the hiccup of a fool." Not very nice. Do any of you here remember every having your laughter ridiculed? Fear of ridicule alters they way we laughs. It takes away its authencity.

The following quotes sees laughter in a better light. George Macdonald, from "Sir Gibbie" in 1879: "It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence." And Philo wrote, from "The Worse Attack the Better," in 33 A.D. "God is the creator of laughter that is good." I like that - How could it be otherwise.

Psychotherapist, Dr. Annette Goodheart is known for her work "Laugh your way to Health." I have some of her videos and audio cassettes. She absolutely laughs her way through her lectures. She also gives some interesting information about laughing.

When someone is laughing you can't control them. You can't be afraid and laugh at the same time. It is also very contagious. That is why laughing was taken out of religion, and all those other very serious things we do, like poli

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