Exploring God’s Laughter

Exploring God’s Laughter.

“O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! What a deep wealth of wisdom and knowledge He has! How incomprehensible are His decisions, how unsearchable His judgments! How undiscoverable are His paths, how mysterious His ways, beyond finding out! Who has understood the mind of Yahweh? Who knows how the LORD thinks, or what His thoughts are? Can anyone discern the LORD’s intentions, His motivations? Who knows enough to give Him advice? Is there anyone qualified to be His counselor? Who has given Him so much that He needs to pay it back? Who could ever have a claim against Him? For everything was created by Him, everything lives through Him, and everything exists for Him; So to Him must be given the glory forever! Amen!” (Romans 11:33-36, also Isaiah 40:12-14).

WANTED: Adventurers who want to explore creation’s Final Frontier, the greatest Wonder of the World; must be extremely curious about the nature of God’s Being; motivated to know more about God than you know presently; inspired by the thrill of discovery;  need to be challenged and changed in the process of exploration; have the courage to step into a safe unknown; able to invest considerable mental energy to pursue life inside God with a mustard seed of trust in Him; be comfortable with the certainty of endless exploring; have the patience to pursue the quest one step at a time for as long as it takes; must explore with the vision of C. S. Lewis in his Narnia tales, “Further Up and Further In!”

Contemporary Frontiers. What are the most compelling frontiers in our world that we could explore… Outer space with its 100 billion galaxies, each of them having 100 billion stars? Inner space where protons and electrons and all the subatomic particles seeming to be dancing in joy? The ocean floors across the earth, 80% of which are unexplored? Or perhaps land areas such as remote mountain ranges, untraveled deserts, impenetrable jungles and rainforests, the frozen tundra of the Arctic, isolated islands in the middle of nowhere, or virgin caverns and caves that are largely hidden from humanity? These are all worthy frontiers, but there is a final frontier that tops them all… God. And whatever might be discovered about the Person of God, it’s only the tip of the eternal iceberg.

Exploring God’s Laughter: 

“The One who sits enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them… The wicked plot against the righteous; they snarl at them in defiance. But the Lord laughs, for He sees their day of judgment coming… They come out at night, snarling like vicious dogs as they prowl the streets. Listen to the filth that comes from their mouths, their words cut like swords. ‘After all, who can hear us?’ they sneer. For your part, Lord, you laugh at them.”  (Psalm 2:4; Psalm 37:13; Psalm 59:6-8).

It seems that our Lord God has an ironic sense of humor. He is reported to have deep belly laughs when He looks at mankind and sees how ridiculous we can be. He seems to laugh whenever we humans do things that are laughably absurd. God sees irony everywhere as He observes behavior that is unexpectedly foolish in light of His greatness. God seems amused when He sees the opposite of what one should expect in a God-filled universe. He chuckles at attitudes that defy logic from His perspective. On the one hand, God isn’t surprised by anything. On the other hand, He seems to pleasantly smirk at us as a prelude to His overdue righteous anger at our ignorant selfishness.

Stop the Foolishness. People build an immense building and think it will reach God and enable access to Him, and God finds it ridiculous. He sees nations without a conscience conspire against God to cut Him out of their laws and society, and God can only say, ‘Are you serious?’ He sees a man who thinks he can become equal to Him in every respect, a god-player, and God can only shake His head. God observes someone who thinks He is able to flee His presence and live as if He doesn’t exist, and God can only look at him with righteous scorn. He hears many of us utter obscene and hurtful language thinking that no one is within earshot, and God can only say, ‘You’re just kidding Me, right?’ He sees so many who think they can do evil and live without restraint, and God can only sigh in sad amusement, knowing there will be a true come-to-Jesus moment waiting in the future. God knows that there will be a Judgment Day coming, and He takes joy in the reality of a moral universe that He created. He knows that all who have rejected Him will someday reap what they sown if they have rejected His grace in life. All this foolishness, all this thoughtlessness… Is it that we don’t have a high enough view of God? Is it that we have too high a view of ourselves? Both? Perhaps what makes God laugh loudest is our futile, foolish hubris:

HUBRIS: a Greek word that means excessive pride; exaggerated self-conceit; overwhelming self-confidence; sheer arrogance; in ancient Greece, hubris was a character flaw reflecting a defiance of the gods, when someone would foolishly or maliciously act against the divine order; someone with hubris always has a lack of self-awareness and won’t stop to examine his behavior or consider other actions; people with hubris are generally too full of themselves to question their motives or actions; people who are overcome with hubris eventually bring about their own downfall. As Rabbi Jonathon Sacks once wrote, “If Scripture is our guide, what makes God laugh is a person’s delusion of grandeur.” 

1. God Laughs at the Power Brokers. “Why this uproar among the nations, this powerless muttering and plotting of the peoples? Kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together and conspire against the Lord Yahweh and His Anointed. They say, ‘Let us break their chains! Now let us throw off their bonds!’ He who sits enthroned in Heaven laughs, the Lord makes a mockery of them. At first He is amused at their presumption, but then His laughter turns to rage and He rebukes them. As God displays His righteous anger, they begin to know the true meaning of ” (Psalm 2:1-5). 

Futile Conspiracies. All through human history, there have been nations that have conspired against God, developing plans to erase God from their society, from their laws, from their little world. They have riled themselves up into an uproar as they explore how to challenge God’s power and authority. These national leaders, these empire-builders, take counsel together in their hopes of overthrowing God, of all things. They plot against the King of the Universe! God considers their futile rebellion laughable. These rebels think in their ridiculous hubris that God has chained them down somehow, that He is restraining them, enslaving them, holding them back. They think that Creator God is keeping them from achieving their full human potential, and they believe they have a better way. Don’t they know, says God, that if they aren’t servants of Me, the God of freedom, they will only be enslaved to their own sinfulness? God finds this hubris absurd. God must be thinking, I made you people in my image! I expect some common sense from you! Trying to overthrow Me is like trying to keep the sun from shining! So the Lord God observes all this pointless planning to take Him out of the picture, and He calmly sits on His throne, unperturbed. God sits enthroned… He doesn’t pace with worry, He doesn’t squirm in distress, He doesn’t tremble with fear, He doesn’t even rise out of His throne to contest their empty threats. God simply sits on His throne in heaven, at peace, and He laughs at their powerless authority as they refuse to acknowledge God’s greatness. How many historic leaders have attempted to ignore or eradicate God? Where are they now? God has scoffed at all of them, from Nero to Mao, from Nimrod to Manasseh, from Jezebel to Stalin. Sure enough, they are all dead and gone, and the Lord remains.

2. God Laughs at the Wicked who Prosper. “Do not fret because of evildoers, for they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb… Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way or brings wicked schemes to pass… Evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for Yahweh will inherit the land. The meek will inherit the earth, and will delight themselves in shalom… The wicked plots against the righteous, and snarls at him in defiance. The Lord laughs at him, for He sees his day coming.”  (Psalm 37excerpts; a psalm of David).

The Temporarily Successful. God doesn’t fret about the prosperity of today’s evildoers. He doesn’t lose any sleep at the apparent injustice of the way the world works sometimes. He laughs off the temporary prosperity of the wrong parties. For God knows the Big Picture, He knows that the wicked will be judged by a righteous Lord. The wicked will not succeed forever. They will sooner or later be cut off and then disappear. From being the center of everything, they will be on the edge of nothing. In the long run, the success of the wicked will be short-lived, and the prosperity of the righteous will last forever. In Psalm 37 we see that God enjoys the delicious irony of the righteous poor receiving a king’s inheritance while the wicked rich get written out of the will altogether. God is amused at the great reversals He has built into His moral universe… the last shall be first and the first shall be last; the humble will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled; those who judge now will ultimately be judged; those who seem to be sitting on life’s sidelines now will ultimately be in the middle of all the action; those who have given up power in this life will receive the wealth of the Kingdom later; today’s bullies are tomorrow’s punching bags. The more we accept David’s holy counsel in Psalm 37, the less we will worry about the apparent prosperity of the wicked, the less we will get hot and bothered by the success of the unworthy. Instead, we will experience a peaceful wholeness that will enable us to flourish in that which is eternally significant, to live into an abundant well-being in which we can honestly say that, in the long run, all is well.

3. God Laughs at the Blissfully Ignorant. “People sneak around the city, snarling like a pack of stray dogs as they prowl in the night, shouting out filth, convinced that they will never get caught. They belch out insults and curses with their mouths, with sharp swords of sarcasm, ridicule, slander and deceit on their lips. After all, they sneer, who is there that can hear us? No one is listening anyway! But you, O Lord, scornfully laugh at them. You scoff at their ignorant and sinful ways. You look at the rebellious nations and hold them in derision. You make a mockery of all the godless nations, treating them like a pitiful joke.” (Psalm 59:7-8).

We are All Guilty as Charged. God scoffs at those live without God-consciousness.  He is amused at the ignorance of the blissfully unaware. God looks at the hubris of those who pretend He doesn’t exist, and He scorns those who live in the light of that hubris. His scorn is mixed with mercy, and with moral integrity. God knows that those who tragically deny His existence also end up refusing His grace. And that is truly pitiful. To live our lives as if no one is watching; to speak as if no one is listening; to comment on social media as if we were completely anonymous; to light-heartedly commit wrongs as if there is no Judge; to cheat as if no one will notice; to treat others as if they weren’t made in God’s image; to commit to God until He wants us to change. It really is a pity when we see those who act as if God doesn’t exist, that there is no one listening to their hurtful and obscene jabbering. It is easy to observe those who are not conscious of God’s personal presence in the world. It is not difficult to spot those who believe that there is no one who is holding them accountable in their daily lives. After all, isn’t that who David is referring to in Psalm 59? But wait a minute. There are some of us believers who live in a similar way during our weak moments, who are fooled into thinking that God is merely an important theory or principle, but certainly not a vital presence. There are some of us who love the idea of God, but who don’t actually love God. Many of us religious folk believe that God exists, but then we go on and live in a way that doesn’t reflect a faith in God’s meaningful existence. In a sinful world, we could easily become practical atheists in which we function like unbelievers. And we unthinkingly go on our merry way being unaware of God’s hold on our life. It’s vital that we don’t live like the “dogs” in Psalm 59, who live without an awareness of the accountability of God’s moral universe. Yes, we do have Someone who is listening, who is observing, who is noticing what we do. We will never be completely anonymous because there is an ever-living God who is personally present and vitally interested in our daily world.

Hall of Fame in Hubris. At the top of the list in the “there go I except for the grace of God” department, we find some biblical characters that truly are all-stars in hubris who thus were undoubtedly scorned, mocked, and laughed at by the Almighty God:

1. The Tower of Babel. “And they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a great tower whose top is in the heavens; we will make a name for ourselves and become famous! The Lord Yahweh came down to look at the city of Babylon and the Tower that the people were building and said… Come, let Us go down and thus confuse their language. In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city.” (Genesis 11:1-9).

Hubris was the giant weak spot of those who, long after the Flood, settled in a valley or plain called Shinar in southern Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. These were rather brilliant people who invented a new construction method using baked bricks instead of stones, and tar as mortar instead of straw and mud. They seemed to think they were destined for great things and wanted the world to know, so they were consumed in their blind ambition to construct what would reach the gods. They were convinced they could be equal to deity and communicate with them, and could actually reach the resting place of the divine beings. This tower was called a ziggurat, a pagan temple for idolatrous worship, and was a vast building that looked like a pyramid but had steps leading up the sides. Archeologists have discovered ziggurats in Mesopotamia that reached the height of a thirty-story building, and were as wide as they were tall. It appears that their ambition was to make a ziggurat much taller than that. Scholars note that when Moses wrote those words he was merely using a figure of speech, and was probably being sarcastic, making fun of how miniscule the Tower was compared to God’s power and presence. To God’s perspective in heaven, the Tower of Babel was less than microscopic.

2. Pharoah. “Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, ‘Thus says Yahweh God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness!’ And Pharaoh said, ‘Who is Yahweh, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, nor will I let Israel go!” (Exodus 5:1-2); “On the Egyptian gods the Lord Yahweh had executed judgments.”  (Numbers 33:4).

The Ten Plagues brought upon Egypt by Moses and Aaron represented God’s complete judgment on the gods of Egypt just as much as on the Pharoah. One could say that Egypt was completely plagued under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Each plague was an opportunity for Pharoah to repent and change his mind. But his extreme hubris kept him from humbling himself through all these national disasters. Of course, Pharaoh considered himself to be a god, so you can’t have much more hubris than that.

3. The Prophet Balaam. “God was very angry when Balaam went, and the Angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. When the donkey saw the Angel of Yahweh standing in the road with a drawn sword in His hand, she turned off the road into a field.” (Genesis 22:22).

The Prophetic Donkey. Balaam apparently knew just enough about Yahweh to make him dangerous. While on his journey to Moab, riding on his faithful donkey, there suddenly was something blocking the way. After continued thwarted attempts to travel down the road, Balaam, who was blind to this divine Messenger, started beating his poor donkey. It turns out that an ignorant creature like a donkey could see an angel, and the so-called mighty prophet could not. Humorously, the Lord gave the donkey the ability to speak to Balaam, and she complained to Balaam about the beatings. She stated her history of being faithful to Balaam, so there must be a good reason for her resistance. Finally Balaam got it, his eyes were opened to see the Angel. Balaam offered an insincere apology and went on his way, unaware that a donkey had made a fool of him, the superstar prophet. This was all laughable to God, of course. As Rabbi Sacks once said, it’s as if the Lord showed Balaam that if He wanted to, He could turn a donkey into a prophet and a prophet into a donkey. Perhaps, as God chuckled, He thought it was time to cool down the hubris of this prophet just a bit.

4. Goliath. “The Philistine, preceded by his shield-bearer, came nearer and nearer to David. When the Philistine looked David up and down, what he saw filled him with scorn, because David was only a lad, with ruddy cheeks and an attractive appearance. The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog for you to come after me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. David retorted to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with sword, spear and scimitar, but I come to you in the name of Yahweh-sabaoth, the LORD of the Angel Armies, and the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have challenged. Today, Yahweh will deliver you into my hand; and the whole assembly shall know that Yahweh does not give victory by means of sword and spear – for Yahweh is Lord of the battle and He will deliver you into our power.’ As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him. Reaching into his shepherd’s bag and taking out a stone, he hurled it with his sling and hit the Philistine in the forehead. The stone sunk in, and Goliath stumbled and fell face down on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with only a sling and a stone, for he had no sword. Then David ran over and pulled Goliath’s sword from its sheath. David used it to kill him and cut off his head. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they turned and ran.” (1 Samuel 17:41-51).

Divine Trash Talk. Young David was outraged that a pagan Philistine would challenge the troops of Israel. Goliath was taunting Israel, he was strutting his impudence to Israel and to Israel’s God. David couldn’t understand why this heathen was allowed to defy “the armies of the living God.” When David confronted Goliath, the giant sneered, did his name-calling trash talk, and cursed David by calling on the names of his pagan gods. Goliath called on those demonic spirits they worshiped. David confidently challenged Goliath in the Name of Israel’s God, Yahweh-sabaoth, the LORD of the Angel Warriors. The spiritual war has begun! And in the strength of Yahweh, David was victorious. Above the human battle between giant and boy was a spiritual battle, and Yahweh-sabaoth defeated the enemy. God in heaven must have laughed in complete scorn at the pointless hubris of Goliath as he unknowingly took on, not merely a boy with a sling, but also an army of angelic warriors.

5. Nebuchadnezzar. “Great Babylon! Was it not built by me, by the power of my might and for the majesty of my glory?” (Daniel 4:30). 

King Nebuchadnezzar, as so often happens when someone gains too much power and develops delusions of grandeur, became so full of himself that he ordered a ninety-foot image of himself, made of gold, so that everyone could swear allegiance to him and worship his image. One could hardly miss this royal statue of the king, and anyone who did not worship the image would be executed. Proud king Nebuchadnezzar found himself strolling, maybe a better word would have been strutting, on the roof of his gigantic royal place in Babylon. As he surveyed the expanse of his kingdom, he declares his own greatness.  At this point the Lord chuckles to Himself and saw that it was time for an earlier dream to be fulfilled. The king proceeded to lose his mind, and “was driven from human society, and ate grass like the oxen do; he was drenched by the dew of heaven; his hair grew like an eagle’s feathers, and his nails became like a bird’s claws.” (Dan. 4:33). Later, Nebuchadnezzar appeared to learn his lesson, and he prayed to God, “I bless the Most High. His kingship endures, age after age.” (Dan. 4:31-32). Because he sincerely repented and offered his prayer to the Lord God, because the king finally learned to submit to the true King, Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity was restored to him, and his kingdom grew great once again. The king closed this section of his life with this declaration of faith: “I praise, extol and glorify the King of heaven, all of whose deeds are true, all of whose ways are right, and he can humble those who walk in pride.” (Dan. 4:34).

6. King Herod. “On the day appointed for the meeting between the leaders of Tyre-Sidon and Herod Agrippa, Herod took his place on his throne, robed in pomposity, and regaled them with a lot of hot air.  The people from Tyre and Sidon wanted to flatter Herod, since they wanted to make peace with him, and they shouted during his speech things like, ‘The voice of a god! The voice of a god and not of a man!’ For God, that was the last straw. God had enough of Herod’s arrogance. And immediately, because Herod did not give the glory to God, an angel was sent from heaven to strike Herod down. Herod had not given to God any of the credit due Him. So Herod was afflicted with a sickness that resulted in his bowels being devoured by maggots. He then died a painful death, rotten to the core.” (Acts 12:21-23).

Infested with Maggots. God was disgusted with Herod’s constant attempts to be the Great Pretender to the throne. Herod’s arrogance and his bloodthirsty cruelty in his assaults on the Christian church reached a boiling point for the Lord, and He revealed His jealousy for not only His glory but also the welfare of His followers. Herod Agrippa paid the ultimate price for reveling in the glory and praise due solely to the Lord God.

7. Satan. “And Jesus said to His disciples, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven!” (Luke 10:18). “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Revelation 20:10).

Satan, the very source of unrighteous hubris, the author of pride, conceit, arrogance and rebellion. This is the fallen angel who brought about the fall of mankind. The Lord scoffs at the devil, for he is defeated and his doom is sealed. God’s laughter at our unholy shenanigans, of course, are always infused with His mercy, with pity. He knows that we are made of dust and are especially susceptible to the devil’s prompts. But God has no mercy whatsoever when He mocks the devil. God fully scorns Satan and everything he stands for. The devil is the very definition of hubris. Our earthly hubris can always be traced back to that of Satan’s, mere tributaries from the river of evil that is the devil. Satan is the original when it comes to delusions of grandeur. God has complete derision for the Evil One, with his overwhelming and ultimately futile pride. St. Thomas More once said that the devil’s proud spirit makes it impossible for him to endure mocking. So God saves His best trash talk for the devil. God reserves His most scathing scorn for him. God laughs the loudest at Satan.