This is an insightful quote about laughter from Lauren Winner’s book, Wearing God. My book review is here:
‘…the laughter of God is inseparable from God’s justice. In the here and now, the kind of laughter that friends of God pursue is laughter that is proleptic—laughter that hints at, or partakes of, the world to come. The best laughter now is laughter that bespeaks a heaven in which those who have been made to weep by earthly rulers will, in the fullness of time, heartily laugh. In other words, laughter is political. Laughter arranges power, and God provokes us to laugh as testimony—testimony to our belief in a God who is ruling over a calamitous or oppressive situation, despite all sign to the contrary.
…Laughter indeed relieves stress and forges bonds. But it is also a sign of defiance, a sign that the ruler who rules unjustly is not ultimately in control.
~ Wearing God by Lauren Winner pg. 190-192