It began with the resident eleven-year-old gadfly asking, "Well, what are you going to preach on this week, Dad?" It's Easter Sunday and he's asking me what my sermon topic is going to be? Before I can finish saying, "The Resurrection of Jesus," my wife with an unabashed grin begins singing, "Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o'er His foes. He arose the victor from the dark domain and He lives forever with His saints to reign."

He arose! What else is there to say or sing, preach or proclaim? There is only one Easter sermon the Resurrection of Jesus and through Him our hope of resurrection.

What is to be our response to this singular event and singularly important Easter message? I believe it is laughter.

First of all we discover the Laughter of Ridicule. In Athens, Paul used the language of Stoics and Epicureans along with the Greek poets, but his message was the resurrection. "Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some laughed." That word is also translated "mocked" or "sneered"; it is the laughter of ridicule.

For the sophisticated Athenians the notion of a man being "dead as a mackeral," then three days later being wondrously alive was little more than a little fishy. Here in this very court of the Areopagus it was expressed by Aeschylus, "Once a man dies and the earth drinks up his blood, there is no resurrection." It is obvious that Paul was speaking foolishness to those who knew what was impossible.

Even in an age when the mysteries of flora and fauna, the marvels of inner and outer space boggle the mind there is still a sophomoric pride that insists: "No Way! I have never experienced resurrection so it can't be true." Every age has its "cultured despisers." This is worth remembering when an instantly sophisticated teenager taunts his parents, "You mean you still believe that stuff?" It is said with laughter, but it is a hollow laugh.

The laughter of the Athenians was probably a way of mocking Paul. They must have thought the "passionate earnestness" of this little homely man was funny. That is the laughter of ridicule. But then what does the servant of the Master expect? Have you forgotten already on this beautiful Easter morning, the jeering and derisive laughter of Thursday and Friday? "Who was it omniscient king that hit you ... If you are the Son of Man come down ... Here is the King of the Jews crowned with thorns."

Of all laughter the laughter of ridicule is the most hollow and self condemning. For we think so little of ourselves that we must raise ourselves by inches as we stand on others. It begins not as the mockery of the cross but as the subtle put-down of racial jokes or as children poking fun at other children. Yet when we mock life it is not because we embrace life, but because we are afraid of it. This is the laughter of ridicule and it has about it the odor of death.