Funny Old World
March 25th, 2004
Dear Friends
Bomb in Madrid → 200 dead. We reel in despair about violence (or at least the bits where we hurt)! ‘The Passion’ is a film notorious for gratuitous violence and yet Christians are falling over themselves to embrace it. Funny old world.
During the last month we launched the ‘Evidence’ to examine the meaning of
life, to bring hope, to understand forgiveness, and to reconcile our souls to suffering and a loving God. Next month we will be raising funds to address the needs of a suffering world through ADRA, yet some are bemused at the relevance of these programs. Funny old world.
I have listened to numerous sermons during the last month on the new satellite options. I confess culture shock and despair from some dire manifestations of our faith and others that almost inspire me to seek truth and charisma in Analytic Chemistry! Which face of Christianity is appropriate? What makes the difference? Funny old world.
An Army General noted that there were no atheists in foxholes but plenty of humourists! Bonhoeffer wrote from prison how humour sustains Christian faith in adversity. Karl Barth noted shortly before his death that ‘good theology should always be done cheerfully and with a good sense of humour’! Helmut Thielicke observed that the ‘message, which resides in humour and from which it lives, is the proclamation of overcoming the world’. Reinhold Niebuhr begins to sum up his views on the topic as follows:
“The intimate relation between humour and faith is derived from the fact that both deal with the incongruities of our existence. Humour is concerned with the immediate, faith with the ultimate. Both are expressions of the freedom of the human spirit, of its capacity to stand outside of life and view the whole scene….Laughter is our reaction to immediate incongruities and those which do not affect us essentially. Faith is the only possible response the ultimate incongruities of existence which threaten the very meaning of our life…..”
When infants play ‘peek a boo’ they become anxious over the disappearance of a parent, and are relieved with laughter at sudden reappearance (the parousia). Laughter indicates the recognition that in the end ‘everything will be ok’. Those of us who live in hope through faith, who trust in Christ’s return should recognise more of life’s incongruities as temporal. We are better able to express the joy of the gospel because we live for a time when ‘the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them and they shall be his people…no more tears… death or suffering… for these will have passed away’.
Thank you for your part in bringing reassurance, joy and laughter to a suffering world. May God continue to bless your cheerful service, for ‘the Evidence’ of ‘The Passion’ is within us.
Yours sincerely,
Victor Pilmoor
Treasurer
“I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
Revelation 21:3-4 (NLT)