FAITH FILES

SO here we are at the start of a new year, perhaps glad to say goodbye to the last one. But what will 2022 bring? A new start for Derby County? A new Prime Minister? War with Russia? An end to Covid or yet more variants?

All have been rumoured, but none are certain, whatever the pundits and prognosticators say. You may be planning a wedding or a holiday or you may just be hoping to survive in work for another year. Perhaps never in peacetime have we known such uncertainty.

Of course, there is the old saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!” Not fair on God, but I know what it means. Yet even amid so much ongoing anxiety and grief I like to think that God and his people can still laugh.

The very future of humour is currently being questioned but I don’t think it’s about to die out. Personally, I don’t enjoy the sort of laughter of the “I can’t believe they just said that” variety or that which exploits prejudice and diminishes the defenceless, but like the late Archbishop Tutu I don’t think Christians should always be poker-faced or that we should never laugh in church. “I commend mirth” said King Solomon. Writer Sebastian Gendry has asked, “Is (yours) a laughter of separation or inclusion? Is it to celebrate, or to ridicule? Are you laughing at, or with others? Are you laughing to move away from pain, or to get closer to joy?”

The Bible says (Job 8:21) “God will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy” and the Psalmist wrote “God has a smile on His face” (42:5) and (126:2) “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then everyone said, ‘The Lord has done great things for them’.”

We may laugh at our own foolishness or with delight at something wonderful. We may prick the bubbles of our foolishness or pomposity with our laughter. No wonder Proverbs 15:15 says “He that is of a merry heart has a continual feast.”

Yes, it has been another very hard year for so many people, but Jesus himself said: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh!” (Luke 6:21)

May God give you good reason to laugh joyfully again in this coming year!

Revd Philip Webb, Baptist Minister