The last laugh...

Well, this afternoon I decided it was time to remove the graffiti from our window. It was hard work but all it needed was some warm water and washing up liquid, a scouring pad, and a lot of hard scrubbing.
Half way through the process, though, I toyed with the idea of leaving it as you see above. Part of me thought that it would be a neat irony, and certainly not what the vandals intended, to advertise the name of Jesus beside the empty cross. However, I reckoned the longer I left the paint on the window to dry and harden the harder it would be to remove it, so the next best thing was simply to photograph it.
Given that it is Easter Monday I was actually laughing to myself while I scrubbed. For the last laugh in the end belongs to Jesus and a little bit of graffiti is hardly going to defeat him or his cause when all the powers of death itself could not hold him back.

The writing's on.... the window

Following on from the story of our 'moving' gatepost, we got something of a surprise this morning to discover that someone last night decided that one of our living room windows just wasn't colourful enough.
It really was a bit of a shock.
All the more so because last night at the Good Friday service I had been preaching about those who mocked Jesus.
At one point I had said something like this:
"He who had given so much love, who was giving so much love, was subjected to mindless hate.
The story of Christ’s passion is not just a story about physical or spiritual suffering: it’s a story of a man’s humiliation. Christ was mocked and ridiculed and humiliated by just about everyone....
If he had called upon Elijah to come to his rescue (as some thought he was doing) then the crowds (in amazement and wonder) would have carefully lifted the crown of thorns from his brow and replaced them with a crown of kingship, and they would have bowed at his feet, but at that very moment Jesus would have ceased to be the true King.
You see if at any moment Jesus had given in to the temptation to prove to the mocking crowds who he really was, (as Judas wanted him to) he would have become someone else, and no more able to save others than you or I.
This is why it was so easy to mock him, and why he could give no answer back.
Jesus knew that the mockery and ridicule were part of the pain he had to bear if he was to be what God had called him to be and to do what God had called him to do.
He also knew and warned his disciples that they too would face ridicule and derision from a hostile world.
And so it has proved to be down through the centuries. It almost goes without saying that if we would follow Christ at all, it is almost inevitable that we will face mockery and scorn from a sceptical world."
Maybe someone who had been at the service wanted to test my reaction?
Seriously, though, isn't it strange how Christ is still mocked by those who have no idea of who he was or what he has done for them?
Still, it will soon be Easter morning. And I know who will have the last "Laugh Out Loud."*

[* in case you can't read it, the graffiti says 'LOL at Jesus' - i.e. laugh out loud...]