Why are you crying? You're a Christian now!

Let me preface this by saying I don't blog for my health, people. I blog to have my ego stroked by positive comments and feedback so I know you guys are reading and I'm not whistling into the wind.

I went to Friday mass at 7:15 am this week. I think we all know what it takes to get me dressed, out of the house and someplace ON TIME that early in the morning. Phen had a slateful of tardies because of my inability to get the boy to school on time, and that was when school was three blocks away and I drove him there in my pajamas.


But I went, because rumor had it Desmond Tutu would be leading the mass. Father Terry--whom you will remember, children, as the man who did *not* introduce me to Archbishop Tutu last summer--made sure I knew about this one well in advance. So I go in to the little side chapel, just a small room, where weekday masses are held. Pretty small crowd on a Friday morning. The dean starts the service with the opening prayer. And then, nonchalantly, from the back of the room, Archbishop Tutu walks in, in his vestments and with his little cap.


I almost lost my breath. It was the real, live, Nobel-Prize-winning, cover-of-Newsweek Desmond Tutu, and he...is...a hobbit.


It's true. He's like two and a half feet tall.

And did I cry when he read the gospel? Of course I did, because Desmond Tutu *lives* the gospel. Do things looks terrible and it seems like evil and brokenness and pain have the upper hand? No, the Kingdom of God will carry the day! And in the meantime we must laugh! Hobbit Tutu giggles. He does not laugh, he giggles. Delightedly. And when you hear it you think, that is how he managed not to go crazy under apartheid. The gospel delights him. He does not merely think it is true, he thinks it is delightful. And he distributed communion and you could tell he loved it, just thought it was the coolest thing in the world that we all got to share it together. He seems so awestruck by it himself that when you go up to receive communion and he says "The body of Christ" you are almost taken aback, you think, "It *is* amazing! This is extraordinary!"

Why are we not awestruck and delighted by the gospel more often?

At today's main service in the Cathedral, he did the baptisms. all done up in his gold vestments and pointy Archbishop hat that is probably supposed to make him look really holy and actually makes him look like the King of the Hobbits. If I were a retired archbishop, I would do the same thing: I would just show up to do the really cool stuff like baptisms and weddings. But my favorite moment came when one of the babies cried when they were baptized and he said, in his heavily accented English, "Why are you crying, eh? You are a Christian now!"

It was an off-the-cuff comment and everyone laughed, but I have been thinking about it all day. I'm not saying Christians should be happy all the time. There are times when our hearts are meant to break with the things that break the heart of God. There are times when we should rend our garments and beat our chests (metaphorically, of course, because that is no longer a culturally acceptable form of grieving) over the grief and injustice in the world. But we should laugh, and we should laugh a lot. Because baptism reminds us that our sins are buried with Christ's death and we are raised with Him into newness of life. We share a common table and a common bond. We get to be the heralds and celebrants of a new way of living, a way that says the Kingdom of God is pressing in all around us if we have eyes to see, a way that assures a broken world that its grasping, frantic way is not the only way to live. We are in on the great secret that God's love will sweep away every ugliness and injustice and He uses us to do it. We are confident of a day when "he shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have all passed away. He that sits upon the throne says, Behold; I make all things new."

I make all things new. Raised to the newness of life. Our holy laughter should echo around the world. We should never get over it.

Why are you crying, eh? You're a Christian now!