LIFE…MORE THAN HOLLOW LAUGHTER

I said of LAUGHTER, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?
– Ecclesiastes 2: 2

“…Solomon, with all his riches, gave himself completely over to the PURSUIT of PLEASURE. He must have spent weeks and months, even years, in this experience.

The first thing he said to himself was, “Enjoy yourself,” so he went in for mirth, LAUGHTER, and PLEASURE….Imagine how the palace must have rocked with laughter. Every night there were stand-up comics, and lavish feasts, with wine flowing like water. You may be interested to know what just one day’s menu included during this time (1 Kings 4:22-23)…what Solomon required to feed his retinue in the royal palace for one day…would feed between ten and twenty thousand people, so there were many others besides the king involved in this search for pleasure.

Now he tells us what he found. Laughter, he said to himself, is MADNESS. Perhaps each of us has experienced this to some degree. Have you ever spent an afternoon with a group of your friends, giving yourself to laughing, having fun, and telling stories about all kinds of experiences? Most of the stories were based on exaggeration; they were all embellished a little and did not have much basis in reality. It is the same with laughter.

Laughter deals with the peripheries of life. There is no solid content to it. “Like the cracking of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools” (Eccl.7:6). It is only a crackling noise; that is all. It leaves one with a sense of unfulfillment. I have had afternoons and evenings like that, which at the time were delightful. We laughed many times as we rehashed experiences and told jokes. But when all was said and done, we went home feeling rather empty and unfulfilled. That was Solomon’s experience. He is not saying that laughter is wrong – and the Bible does not say that either. It says that laughter is empty; it does not fulfill or satisfy. There is nothing “left over,” no residue that endures.”

[Meditation] – Like it is with pleasure, only God can fill your mouth with HOLY LAUGHTER that oozes out of a truly blessed heart: “Then was our mouth filled with LAUGHTER, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them” (Psa. 126:2).