Join us April 8, when we will have FUN on Holy Humor
Sunday-
-saying jokes,having a festive atmosphere and continuing the joy of Easter.
Many churches are resurrecting an
old Easter custom begun by the Greeks in the early centuries of
Christianity---"Holy Humor Sunday" celebrations of Jesus'
resurrection on the Sunday after Easter.
For centuries in Eastern Orthodox,
Catholic and Protestant countries, the week following Easter Sunday, including
"Bright Sunday" (the Sunday after Easter), was observed by the
faithful as "days of joy and laughter" with parties and picnics to
celebrate Jesus' resurrection.
Churchgoers and pastors played practical
jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, told jokes, sang, and
danced.
The custom was rooted in the musings of
early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John
Chrysostom) that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from
the dead. "Risus paschalis - the
Easter laugh," the early theologians called it.
