Cary - The Sacred Art of Joking

Whats so funny about Easter?

H eres something that sounds like a joke but isnt:

When is a joke not a joke?

When its an April fool.

I told you it wasnt a joke. Its not funny. But then again, neither is April Fools Day. You will detect a mild note of disapprobation in my tone here. Im not a fan of April Fools Day, mainly because, as you have discovered, Im boringly technical about comedy. Practical jokes arent jokes. They are pranks. They are hoaxes. Not jokes.

Having read almost of all of this book, you know why practical jokes are not really jokes. Jokes require shared information. But if you are being pranked, either by an individual or by a national newspaper, you dont have all the information. If youre being pranked by a schoolboy in a black-and-white Will Hay film, you dont know hes put a bucket of water above the door. You arent in on the joke. You are part of the joke. In fact, you are the joke.

Thinking bigger

The dynamic shifts when we scale this up to a full-blown hoax. This is the favoured April Fool gag of the moment. Newspapers, radio breakfast shows and large corporations love to tell a story that is on the edge of believability but is actually pure fiction. In 2017, Emirates airline announced its triple-decker plane, complete with swimming pool, games room and park. A year earlier, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts tweeted that Texas would start to issue its own currency. In 2014, Kings College Choir in Cambridge announced that they were replacing boys singing soprano with older men using helium instead. They produced an amusing video illustrating this.

In these cases, an enormous bucket of water is being placed on a huge doorway in order to drench an entire nation. Only the perpetrator of the hoax has all the facts. The rest of us are not in on the joke. We are all the joke. Anyone who falls for it is the joke. And rather than getting wet, you feel foolish. How is that a joyful comic experience? The hoax then is not a joke. Its a prank. This is why Im not a fan of April Fools Day. Thank you for listening.

Easter tomfoolery

What does this have to do with Easter other than taking place at roughly the same time of year? In 2018, Easter Day fell on April Fools Day for the first time since 1956. I would argue that this is the very point of the story. The dead do not rise. But Jesus did.

Taking the story of the death of Jesus at face value, it doesnt seem like a comic tale. The Church rarely presents it as such. But it used to. The phrase Risus Paschalis c ould be found in Easter celebrations in previous centuries. It means the Easter laugh.

Easter laughter

The origin of the phrase Risus Paschalis is obscure. Some attribute it to early church fathers like Gregory of Nyssa. There is stronger evidence of linking Easter with comedy in the work of Christian philosopher Peter Abelard (10791142). He wrote hymns for Good Friday and Holy Saturday. One contains this stanza:

Grant us, Lord, so to suffer with you

that we may become sharers in your glory,

to spend these three days in grief

that you may allow us the laugh of Easter grace.

On the eve of the Reformation in the early sixteenth century, it had become a widespread phenomenon. Priests would tell jokes in Easter sermons. These attracted criticism from Luthers contemporaries , Oecolampadius and Erasmus, who were shocked by the bawdiness and tone of the gags, which they considered unsuitable for church.

Whats the joke?

To those outside the Church, and plenty inside, it may not be easy to see what the big joke is about Easter. In bald terms, God tricked Satan. Since the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, God had been working on a plan to save people from their sin. This is hinted at many times in the Bible in passages like Isaiah 53 (normally read in carol services). We also get the bizarre gift of myrrh, for embalming, at Jesus birth.

In contriving the death of Jesus, Satan achieved Gods purposes. Jesus saved the world by his death on the cross and Old Nick was humiliated by Jesus resurrection on the third day. God 1: Lucifer 0. Laugh at the devil. Hes been played for a fool. In fact, hes an eternal April Fool.

The devil in the detail

The Risus Paschalis tradition waned for a variety of reasons. It may have fallen by the wayside because of theological shifts in the past 500 years. As with mystery plays, the Reformation has something to answer for here.

But Easter is funny in other ways, even though it does not seem so at first or possibly even second glance. Crucifixion is a gruesome and painful punishment. (It is literally excruciating. Thats where the word comes from.) It would therefore seem hard to describe the brutal execution of any man let alone the GodMan Jesus Christ as funny.

A fresh look at the details of the story, however, reveals a story riddled with comic incongruities and ironies. This begins well before the traditionally recognized Passion narratives. We have already seen in Part 2, Chapter 16, how Jesus raising of Lazarus creates comedy back at the Temple in John 11. On seeing that Jesus has power over life and death, the religious authorities decide to kill him.

This is quite a contrast from the numerous occasions where Jesus predicts his own death, like Mark 9.3032. The disciples have no idea what he meant since, in their minds, there was no way this miracle worker could be killed.

False sense of security

Killing Jesus, however, proved worryingly easy, considering his divine, cosmic power. His trial was rushed and fixed. The crowd were so easily swayed. They had been cheering Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem and there they were, demanding the release of a murderer. The speed with which they spoke with one collective mind is reminiscent of the Yes, we are all individuals scene in Monty Pythons Life of Brian .

Black Friday

In the blackest and bleakest day in human history, all of the above mocked and jeered as Jesus was nailed to a cross beneath a sign saying that he was the king of the Jews, which is funny because its true. The only person who had committed no sin was crucified between two common criminals. One of the criminals , despite being near to death himself, used his dying words to join the mockers, sneering at Jesus. The other is told by Jesus they will be together in paradise (Luke 23.43). Likewise, a centurion, the despised Roman occupier, could see that this man was the Son of God (Mark 15.39). Meanwhile, Peter, the sturdy fisherman, Jesus rock, who has been with him for a few years, is denying him to a young girl. In a way, this is more humiliating than the disciple who runs away naked in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14.52).

Ironies abound as the religious people mishear Jesus quoting Psalm 22, saying, He is calling Elijah when he is giving more clues to his identity and the awful mistake the religious leaders have made. They taunt Jesus, telling him to come down from the cross, which he could do but chooses not to. He saved others; he cannot save himself (Matthew 27.42). He is, of course, saving others at the cost of his own life. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, healer of the sick, Gods chosen, prophesied king, has been killed by priests. It doesnt get more incongruous than that.

Death, where is thy sting?

The Easter story was not over. The disciples had missed the clues which were not very subtle. The earth had shaken. Rocks had split open. There was an unexpected total solar eclipse that lasted not minutes but hours. Three hours. The tall, thick, woven tapestry curtain from the Temple, protecting the Holy of Holies, was torn in half. From top to bottom. Then a zombie apocalypse. The tombs were also opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many (Matthew 27.52). The signs were there that something of cosmic significance was happening.