We’re told that laughter is the best medicine – and it may well be that this old adage is true! A recent study has demonstrated that having a chuckle causes the tissue inside the heart to expand and increases oxygen flow around the body.
Patients with coronary artery disease who engaged in a course of laughter therapy had reduced inflammation and better health, the research found.
‘Our study found that laughter therapy increased the functional capacity of the cardiovascular system.’
Prof Marco Saffi, Lead author
Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil
Webmd.com
We also know that laughter has a number of other benefits to wellbeing including:
- Relieving tension
- Lowering blood pressure
- Strengthening the immune system
- Improving memory
- Promoting collaboration
- Removing barriers between people
- Improving alertness
We may never have articulated fully the benefits of having a good laugh, but we probably have all experienced the happy aftermath of a really good chuckle – with a friend or by receiving a silly video on our mobiles that has made us ‘lol’ … laugh out loud!
In familiar verses from Luke 6, The Sermon on the Plain, we read:
‘Looking at his disciples, [Jesus] said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”’
(Luke 6:20-21)
Jesus was teaching his newly-called disciples and introducing them to the upside-down Kingdom he was bringing in. A counter-cultural way of living, with eternal hope – and laughter – as the ultimate reality.
In the life of Jesus, we see the whole remit of human emotion expressed: love, compassion, anguish, anger, fear, empathy, and joy. When Jesus spoke about removing planks of wood from our eyes, as recorded in Matthew 7:3-5, the listeners must have laughed at the ludicrous image he portrayed. Maybe he spoke these words with a twinkle in his eye!
'Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.’
(Matthew 7:3-5)
Then we read that when Jesus called James and John, the sons of Zebedee, to follow him, he renamed them ‘Boanerges’ which means ‘sons of thunder’ or ‘sons of commotion’, a humorous reference to their sometimes misplaced and impulsive behaviour! Some fun banter perhaps? I wonder what name Jesus might call each of us – in jest, of course!
While our call to follow Jesus is serious business, his desire for each of us is to experience the joy and fun that discipleship brings. Maybe in the week ahead we can remember that laughing is a wonderful gift from God, one that we sometimes push away in difficult seasons.
Instead, let’s embrace it. Seek out people who make us laugh. Read books and watch shows that make us chuckle. And see it as gift from the God who loves us!
PRAYER
Thank you, God, for creating us with the gift of laughter:
For the joy of release, the delight of humour, the connection with friends and family, and the transformation of perspective it brings.
You are the God who laughs and enables us to laugh too.
Come close to us and help us laugh in all seasons, in pain and peace, that we may experience your gift each day.
Amen.
