Laughter is the release of joy as tears are the release of sorrow. And, for those in Christ, as certainly as we experience the latter, we will all someday enjoy the former- joy and the laughter that expresses it. Luke’s recording of the beatitudes (chapter 6) is markedly different from Matthew’s (chapter 5) on many fronts. Both address a certain reversal of every hardship, a wonderful solution to all of life’s greatest pains. Luke in his pithy way leaves out the spiritualizing of poverty and hunger and just lets the injustice of the physical weigh upon our minds. Then, he includes a statement that we can most certainly hear in the voice of Jesus, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
I can see him looking at specific people with unrelenting reasons to weep. He was, after all, speaking to a live audience, with living hurts and real desperation who had traveled some distance to get some solace for their condition. And, he spoke in a poignant second person- directly to them. “You will laugh.” It is not a possibility, but a certainty. It is a corresponding reward for the depth of pain experienced.
Of course, we know that many of us who experience difficulty in this life, also find a comedic resolution to our grief and find delight also in the present order. But, the certainty with which Jesus spoke, gives us a distinct sense that a day is coming when all of that grief is turned over to a joy that more than washes away the pain of present grief. “You will laugh” is not only a statement of certainty, but seemingly mandatory- a command that no one will refuse. “You will drown out every tear of anguish with double the tears of joy.”
I think of the overwhelming grief and sorrow associated with the scores of Haitians who lost loved ones. They now have inerasable memories of grief, lost income, are now homeless and perhaps parentless. I cannot imagine their daily grief that persists beyond the horror of viewing and smelling the inescapable scene of death. “You will laugh.” In fact, if people in heaven are in any way formed into communities akin to our gatherings here, I think Haiti’s corner of heaven will be the loudest with laughter. It makes me cry with tears of joy to picture of the spectacle of those who struggled most in this life with the most exhilarating and noisy laughter that their Creole voices that bellow. We’ll know where they are.