A promise is given to Rebekah and Isaac, “the older will serve the younger,” and a child is born. Isaac, the son of laughter, brings both a beast and a deceiver into the world. He was not only a cause for laughter at his conception; he also delivered a punchline in Jacob that made him the joke.

Jacob enters grasping the heel of his brother, who is hairy and red. He will later come in the likeness of Esau’s sinful flesh, in Rebekah’s bridal act of righteous deception, to claim what is rightfully his. But though he seized his brother’s heel, it was his own body that would walk with a limp after wrestling with Yahweh.

Jesus is born, supplanting His older brother, Adam, and receiving His rightful, promised inheritance. Jesus’ birth supplants entirely, for He is the only Son of God the Father.

The kingdom comes with the cries of an infant. A baby born of a virgin. Grown men kneel at the feet of a child. It’s all a conspiracy, and it’s all so funny. It’s a cosmic bridal deception.

The kingdom comes through a baby. That baby grows up, heals and teaches, forms a community around Himself, and wins the victory…by dying. And then the dying Son of Laughter rose from the dead. In Jesus, the things that don’t happen, do.

And then the Church, the body of that virgin-born, death-defying King, continues the joke. We are the deceptive bride, and our daily lives and weekly liturgies, though they look innocent enough, are battering rams against the gates of hell.

Advent is a time to make merry, for all of our salvation is a joke that culminates in eternal laughter.