Laughing at Sin

my main hobby

I like simplifying the sum total of all the activities of my life into a few descriptive actions. It’s a kind of minimalism of human life. In reality, very few of us have lives that are so diverse and extraordinary that they can’t be pretty well summed up in a paragraph or two. After my eventual death (excepting the return of our Lord), I think a few sentences would suffice to describe who I was to my future descendants. Maybe two sentences and a joke. I want my funeral to be slightly longer than this, but only so I can force all of my future descendants to watch some PowerPoints I have prepared for them. Again, most of the slides are jokes.

Even the most influential people in history have relatively short descriptions. Moses led the people of God out of Egypt and gave them God’s words. Paul took the Gospel of Christ to the Gentiles. Abraham Lincoln saved the Union. Mother Teresa served the poor.

So the other day I landed on a descriptor I want to define my life by. Perhaps it could even go on my gravestone:

Here lies M. Bragg

Died 2126

HE LAUGHED AT SIN

View attached hologram for a live feed of his decomposing body.

I love this idea of laughing at sin. I like the idea of placing it as one of the main activities I do with my life. I am here to complete just a few simple objectives; to glorify God is the best summary of those, but under that reality sits my main form of daily entertainment: ridiculing my own evil desires, chuckling at how simple-minded, shortsighted, and foolish those desires are.

In these moments of entertainment, I see myself for the fool I am and become all the wiser for it. Recognizing my own weakness allows me to laugh at my own struggles. In this state of mind, what is right and what is wrong becomes crystal clear; the wrong choice is the ridiculous one, the hilarious one.

I am not suggesting that we should not take sin seriously or that combating its influence in our lives will not require extreme effort. John Owen penned one of the most quotable quotes of his day with the line “be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”

Yet, comedy, joy, and laughter are tools of our King, not our enemy. And there is a comedy in realizing sin’s powerlessness. My sin has no ability to diminish my righteousness before the Lord. Christ’s actions have already gained me my status before God. This leaves my sin in an unenviable position of foolishness. It has no chance of achieving a lasting effect. Rather, it is something worth laughing at, worth ridiculing. And in this laughter, the temptation of sin is lessened. It loses its power. those who have truly grasped the Gospel can most easily be recognized by their laughter (and perhaps—paradoxically—their sorrow).

Our friends Lewis (C.S.) and Chesterton (G.K.) have a few great quotes on this topic which I have added below:

“A characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly… Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One “settles down” into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness… For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.”

–G.K. Chesterton

“If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt — and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humor and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.”

–The demon Screwtape

View other posts from Micah at micahbragg.substack.com