Smiling and laughing. These are good things. These are delightful things. Or so you’d think.

I remember reading in John Wesley’s Journals about one day when he and his brother, Charles, met up with one another and began having a laughing fit and couldn’t stop themselves for quite some time! It was a very endearing vignette (to me), but John was quite ashamed of the ungodly way in which he and his brother comported themselves, and they decided then and there to rededicate themselves, blah blah blah. I wish they had rededicated themselves to remembering how wonderful it is to laugh!!

Well, today’s saint, Adalbert, seems to have had one distinguishing characteristic above all others: he would never be surprised with a smile on his face. Now he was helped to this end by a rather traumatic experience he had as a young seminarian: His spiritual leader, Diethmar, Bishop of Prague, was upon his deathbed when, in the presence of Adalbert, Diethmar cried out “in a manner that terrified all” that the devils were waiting to snatch his (Diethmar’s) soul because, as a bishop, he had pursued wealth, status, and pleasure. Young Adalbert immediately put on a hairshirt (where did one find these things, anyhow?!) and then, lo and behold, found himself named the new bishop!

Butler recounts Adalbert’s elevation to bishop in this way:

From that day he was never seen to smile, and being asked the reason, made the answer, “It is an easy thing to wear a mitre and a cross; but it is a most dreadful circumstance to have an account to give of a bishopric to the Judge of the living and the dead.”

And to remind himself never to end up like Diethmar, Adalbert not only wore a hairshirt all his days but slept only for short spurts of time, lying upon a piece of sackcloth on the floor, and of course he fasted frequently and in the most austere ways.

Perhaps the most telling part of Adalbert’s spiritual makeup is the conviction–drilled into him after observing Diethmar’s deathbed throes–that God is first and foremost JUDGE. And when you think about it, judges don’t ever hear cases that aren’t, at base, accusatory. Someone (whether the State or a patron of a restaurant or an angry neighbor) complains that someone (always called the Defendant, whether in a civil or a criminal case) has done something bad and wrong and in violation of the law. And the best thing a judge ever does is to say to the Defendant, “You have not been found guilty of what has been charged against you.” That’s as good as it gets!

Judges don’t, in their official capacity, ever say “Hey, you’re great! Let’s grab dinner–I really could use a friend like you!” Nope. And, so, in Adalbert’s mind and heart, all that he could hope for is that God the Judge would choose not to damn him in the end and let devils snatch Adalbert’s soul for all eternity.

Why in the world–except out of abject FEAR–would anyone want anything whatsoever to do with worshipping a Judge like this? What is worthy of love, of adoration, of dedication, of faith in Some Divine Being that, at best, says “OK, I guess I won’t damn you”?!

Me, I would prefer worshipping a God that was actively tickling John and Charles in the ribs and pushing them to get over themselves and just roll around on the ground in laughter! And I would have choose to follow into eternity a God who reassured Adalbert that he was not Diethmar, inviting that young prelate to embrace and even enjoy his own life’s journey!