April Fools

April Fool’s Day is one holiday we never want to fall victim. As harmless as the tricks generally are, to be caught a fool is to mean someone else is more clever than you. I’m not sure why we have the innate in-ability to laugh at ourselves...it has to be practiced and accepted for most of us. Usually, if we are the butt of a joke, it makes us angry. We don’t like to think someone else knows something we don’t—even if it is as trivial as what’s under that hat.
TV shows have created entire themes around laughing at one another. America’s Funniest Home Videos is all about catching someone in the midst of an unfortunate accident, or how someone has pulled the wool over another’s eyes. Ever notice those who get the angriest are usually the proudest when the prank turns into prize money?
Foolishness is never an endeavor though it is often a liability, and sometimes closer to us than we’d like. Paul reminds us the context in which God demonstrated His greatest act of love and self-revelation, the cross. “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God….God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…” (I Cor 1:18, 27-28).
I don’t like being considered a fool. While one of my greatest temptations is to present the Gospel in terms that are credible to society, I also find that I can’t understand the world in terms other than that defined by Christ. For Christians, Truth is defined by the cross & resurrection. Our starting point for wisdom is other than the world’s. As the Proverb says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7, NRSV).
- Tob Adams