April Fools...

Some say it began back in the 1700s as a "prank day," others tie it to the Vernal Equinox. If you Google it, you will find several hundred theories as to what gave birth to "All Fool's Day," or "April Fools." Here's one thing I read:

These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.

Wow, that must have been a blast. I guess you had to be there, as they say.

I also found a site called "Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time" (Hoaxes.org) that ranks some of the wildest ones including:

1. The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest - a video played on BBC TV stations back in 1957, showing people harvesting spaghetti noodles from trees.

3. The Eruption of Mt. Edgecumbe - a long dormant volcano in Sitka, Alaska, where some joker in 1974 hauled a bunch of old tires up the snow-covered slope at night, and lit them on fire so the locals awoke to what appeared to be the beginnings of an eruption.

7. The Taco Liberty Bell -  an ad run by the famous Mexican junk food purveyor Taco Bell in 1996, saying they had purchased the naming rights to the Liberty Bell. So many gullible people were outraged that President Clinton's press secretary Mike McCurry actually got questions about it at a press conference. Thinking quickly on his feet, McCurry (who is now an ordained U.M. pastor and instructor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.) stated that it was true, and that the rights to the Lincoln Memorial has also been sold, now to be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

10. Nixon for President -  a 1992 gag where it was reported that former President Richard Nixon was going to run for the office again using the slogan "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again."

20. Left-Handed Whopper -  in an April Fools' Day 1998 ad, Burger King touted a new "left-handed Whopper sandwich," complete with a schematic drawing of it. Thousands of goofs asked tried to order it.

Every one of these 100 "Hoaxes of All Time" are accompanied by the disclosure that many people were fooled. Is it any wonder that authors of REAL fake news on some of those internet sites gather adherents. It sure explains Fox "News."

Actually, there is a secret goof in all of us, I believe. There is a tiny nook in our psyche that wants believe in miracle cures, benevolent aliens, get-rich-quick schemes, and virtually anything that is capable of suddenly launching our joy of living into warp speed. If a story about something extraordinary like that is made even the slightest bit convincing, we may fall for it. Now, there is some kind of a continuum at work here whereby some of us are more gullible than others, with skeptics on one end, and Publisher's Clearinghouse "sure winners" on the other. Unfortunately, some of the more easily fooled are also easily fleeced, hence the proverb, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

Skeptics and atheists put religion on the "easily fooled" end of this spectrum, usually because they begin from the "there is no God" point of view. If that is your premise, then it's easy to see how they can be critical of persons of faith. Oh, and many persons of faith have helped the skeptics' cause: Ku Klux Klan and religious fundamentalists of all faiths have espoused hatred, vengefulness, and even terrorism in the name of their "faith." I confess to being weakened in my own Christian faith when I hear of some bunch saying or even doing horrible things in the name of Christianity, including the current acceptance of "the end justifies the means" by "evangelicals" by defending the moral failures of our Commander in Chief because he is naming the "right" Supreme Court Justices or encouraging the incursion of their religion into the affairs of state. Sounds like an "easily fooled" move to me.

In fact, Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus have long been seen in church history as a divine "prank" or "April Fools" joke on the devil. There is actually a group of people who call themselves "The Fellowship of Merry Christians"--publishers of The Joyful Noiseletter--who like to continue to bring the best "April Fools" humor and Easter in close proximity. The idea that the religious leaders who encouraged the crucifixion of Jesus, the Roman government who carried it out, and Satan himself, who purportedly wanted Jesus to fail at his quest of redeeming humankind, were all bamboozled by the Resurrection is, in itself, a divine prank. Even the Apostle Paul gets into the comedy when he writes, "...the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us being saved, it is the power of God" (I Corinthians 1:18) and "We are fools for Christ's sake..." (I Corinthians 4:10).

There is a reason we call it the Christian "faith." Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as "...the substance of of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen..." We read the testimonies of Jesus Christ in the Bible, hear the stories of persons of faith who have gone before us, and based on these witnesses and accounts, we come to believe in the redeeming and transforming power of the Christian experience. We remain "fools for Christ" because there is no way to prove this stuff, any more than we can "prove" that the Beatles are the greatest band that ever lived or that Black Holes are exactly what Stephen Hawking said they were. That doesn't make them any less impactful on human history, and believe me, the Jesus story has impacted history far, far more than the Fab Four or the late theoretical physicist (this is the year 2018--two-thousand and eighteen years after the Christ event!). Can we prove that Jesus is alive and seated at the right hand of God? Or that the Holy Spirit resides in the hearts and lives of believers and their church? Nope. We choose to believe this stuff because we're "fools for Christ's sake." And don't let your believe be a smug belief--if God "desires that none should perish" (II Peter 3:9), we should too, and be about this pursuit, rather than grooving on the idea that we are counted among the sheep rather than the goats. Being a fool for Christ's sake means we believe the whole world is worthy of God's love, grace, and redemption, and that Christ did the heaving lifting to make this come true. Now, we just have to partner together to fix things and spread the love around. There is a reason our tale is called "Good News," and not just "Good News for some, sorry about the rest of you."

If there is anything that speaks of the genuineness of our Christian faith, it is that God didn't make the Resurrection an nationally-televised reality show. The scriptural accounts suggest it was a "quiet" occasion with no fireworks, people screaming in the streets, or even universal acceptance of its occurrence. Even Thomas "doubted," and the two guys on the road to Emmaus didn't even recognize the resurrected Jesus. The Romans didn't freak out, nor do we hear anything from the religious leaders like "Well, he didn't stay dead, so let's go after him!" Instead, Jesus appears quietly, and to individuals or small groups of his followers. This new "faith" would be something about which each of us would have to decide, not a Hollywood moment before the cameras and lights.

So, as we finish our Lenten journey through the Cross, the waiting, and the Easter promise, let us decide, or be affirmed in our decision. And let us celebrate our faith, not with raucous festivals and shouts, but with smiles and a joke or two, and the whispered words, "He is Risen!" Don't tell anybody...April Fools...