Word on the Street

April 13, 2012

In the Greek Orthodox tradition, the day after Easter was devoted to telling jokes. They believed that because of Easter, the final cosmic joke was on death not on human beings who now had been give the gift of resurrection. It is reminiscent of Paul's words in I Corinthians 15 which we will be studying this weekend in worship:

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable,
and the mortal with immortality,
then the saying that is written will come true:

'Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?' (I Corinthians 15: 54-55)

So in the spirit of our Greek Orthodox friends, and a few days late, here goes:

A man who walked into a pet store and said, "I want to return this talking bird."

The owner said, "Well, sir, we guarantee that all our birds can talk, but we can't guarantee when they will talk."

"No, no," the man said. "The bird talks all right, but I don't like its attitude. For six days I said to the bird, 'Can you talk?' The bird said nothing. Every morning and every night I stood in front of the cage and said, 'Can you talk?' The bird said nothing again. Finally this morning, I lost my temper and shouted at the bird, 'You stupid bird, can you talk?!'"

"So, what happened?" the owner asked.

"That bird looked at me and said, 'Yeah, I can talk. Can you fly?'"

I hope your Easter celebration continues to be full of wonder, joy and eternal laughter.