Jesus Laughed

This cartoon (to the left) appeared in a Facebook group called "Church Funnies Group." It's a group where Christians can come together and often make fun of ourselves. When I saw the cartoon, I laughed, and then I ruined it by reading the stuffy comments, from the self-appointed theologians in the group. "This isn't funny!" "This isn't Bibilical!"  

Yet this cartoon has become the theological hill upon which many in the group are willing to die on. Even my comment, in which I said "Jesus Christ, are there people really angry over this post?" A simple prayer, typed out, got me called a blasphemer, and told that I was using Jesus' name in vain. Next comment was "Is this really the theological hill upon which you are choosing to die today?" Oh, boy! Did that stir the pot! And the answer to that question is "Yes!" James Nethercott, asked "Who made you the judge of our Lord's sense of humor?" Because I merely asked if this was the hill they are choosing to die upon. My reply was "Have you seen the negativity? Oh, wait, you are contributing to the negativity. I sure hope that you are man enough to stand up to all the errors that the church endorses." 

A study published in Scientific American in 2013 states 

As a whole, the young men had stronger connections within cerebral hemispheres while the young women had stronger connections between hemispheres, the study, detailed today (Dec. 2) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found. However, the cerebellum, a part of the brain below the cerebrum that plays a role in coordinating muscle movement, showed the opposite pattern, with males having stronger connections between hemispheres. Roughly speaking, the back of the brain handles perception and the front of the brain handles action; the left hemisphere of the brain is the seat of logical thinking, while the right side of the brain begets intuitive thinking. The findings lend support to the view that males may excel at motor skills, while women may be better at integrating analysis and intuitive thinking.

So the cartoon, leads me to a question and two statements. 

First the statements, while the nativity of our Lord is important, this cartoon shows the fundamental differences between men and women. Let's face it, women typically bring gifts that are practical, a new mom doesn't feel like cooking, we bring food. A new mom doesn't have time to run out to the store to buy diapers if she hits the last one, and formula is expensive. Its a funny look at how differently we, women, think from men. 

My favorite comment that I saw over and over and over, said "Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh were brought to help Jesus' escape King Herod." First off, no they weren't. They were prophetic gifts who identified Jesus as "King of Kings, the High Priest, and ultimate sacrifice." (I will be writing more about this later.)

Now, for my question, did Jesus have a sense of humor? 

Did Jesus have a sense of humor? I believe that he did. I believe that just as Jesus wept (John 11:35), it would only make sense that Jesus would laugh when the occasion called for it. Jesus wasn't just God in flesh, He was also fully human. 

R.C. Sproul writes, The Bible does say that God laughs. In the Psalms it’s a derisive laugh. When the kings of the world set themselves against God and take counsel against God, it says that he who sits in the heavens shall laugh. God will hold them in derision. It’s sort of a “huh!” kind of laughter. It’s not a jovial response of happiness, but nevertheless it’s laughter.

In the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament—for example, in Ecclesiastes—we’re told that certain things are appropriate at certain times. There’s a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to build, a time to tear down; there’s a time to dance, a time to sing, a time to laugh, a time to cry. Since God has, in his seasons, appointed appropriate times for laughter, and Jesus always did what was appropriate, it would seem to me that when it was time to laugh, he laughed.

Donald Wayne Viney wrote in The Midwest Quarterly, "The teachings of Jesus Christ contained considerable humor in the forms of exaggeration, satire, sarcasm and irony. The divine aspects of Jesus are often stressed at the expense of his humanity, and theology has traditionally emphasized the incompatibility of laugher with deity. However, the Gospel writers often missed the subtle ways in which Jesus deflated the hypocrisy in the exaggerated religious practices he encountered."

One of my favorite sculptures is my Jim Carlos, and is kept at Clyde Central UMC in Clyde, NC. The sculpture is of Jesus laughing. Officially know as "The Joy of Jesus" the sculpture shows Jesus enjoying a hearty laugh. I imagine that Jesus was probably enjoying the moment when he told the disciples to let the children come to Him.  Why would God gift us with humor if He himself didn't exhibit humor? 

Martin Luther wrote, Christ is a God of joy. It is pleasing to the dear God whenever thou rejoices or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.

Viney, goes on to say "When one surveys the general testimony of the Gospels, it is difficult to understand how one could conclude that Jesus was not a man "complete with both tear ducts and funny bone" (Phipps, 104). How could one who was popular with children (Mt 19.13-14; Mk 10.13-16; Lk 18.15-17) and who encouraged his followers to become as little children (Mt 18.3) not be cheerful? How could one accused of indulging his palate not laugh (Mt 11.19; Lk 5.33; Lk 7.34)? How could one who told his followers that they were at a wedding party while they were in his presence not be jovial (Mt 9.15; Mk 2.19; Lk 5.34)? Is joy not a sign of wisdom, and is wisdom not vindicated by all of her children (Lk 7.35)? It only remains to provide more direct textual evidence."

In fact, one would have to study the languages of the Bible to really catch all the humor of the language used. D. S. Barrett has pointed to the oneupmanship humor manifest in Jewish literature of Jesus' time. Allan Gould regards the Hebrews' rebuke of Moses, "Are there no graves in Egypt, that you took us out here to die?" (Exodus 14:11) as history's oldest joke. Old Testament humor is explored in William Whedbee's The Bible and the Comic Vision. When Jesus instructs Peter on paying taxes (Matthew 17:27), he is speaking "in imaginative and humorous terms." All this places Jesus firmly in the long tradition of Jewish joking. (Barry Baldwin, the Presbyterian Record, V. 129, Issue 7).

For everything there is a season ... a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.-Ecclesiastes 3:1,4. When you are dancing, rejoicing, and enjoying yourself, what comes of that enjoyment? Laughter! That the Bible rejoices in humor might come as a surprise to many. Yet since humor can be the most powerful method of communicating serious information in an appealing, relaxing and respectful manner, we must surely expect to find humor in the Scriptures. In fact, as this article explains, it is there in abundance. It is at the heart of our salvation history. The Bible 'revels in a profound laughter, a divine and human laughter that is endemic to the whole narrative of creation, fall and salvation, and finally a laughter that results in a wondrous, all-encompassing comic vision'. We surely find divine humor in our attempts as humans to judge the actions of God according to our expectations and then to discover that our conclusions are dramatically wrong.

Scripture-inspired humor is desperately needed today. The world is threatened at all levels by the over-seriousness and intolerance of fundamentalists. Christian fundamentalists believe that they alone have the fullness of divine truth and that their task is to impose this on others. Humor cures any form of intolerance. It deflates pomposity and inflated egos. It is the beginning of humility. Pope Francis wisely comments: 'If one has no sense of humor, it's difficult to be happy ... For me a sense of humor ... is closest to grace ... born of the Holy Spirit'. 

One of the most humorous things that God did was call a Messiah to be born a leader, where the Government would sit on David's throne to be born in a stable. Think on that for a moment. The religious of the world were looking for a KING to be born in palaces. No one was looking for a king that was born in a stable. Rejecting worldly wisdom and signs, God chooses to save those who believe through the foolishness of the preaching of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 1:21). 

If you will, humor me for a moment. I am a history lover. I learn loads of things that I didn't know when I attend historical re-enactments/living history events. One of my favorite historians to watch is Lucy Worsley, from England. Ms. Worsley not only teaches history, but she dresses up as the wives of Henry VIII, or she dons Elizabethan dresses, she puts herself in the time period of which she teaches, and teaches from that world view. Humor is also a A Pedagogical Method, that Jesus Christ, the master teacher, uses humor often as a pedagogical method. Some incidents in the life of Jesus display a humorous quality to his teaching style. The wedding feast of Cana (John 2:1-11) contains several humorous scenes. It is ironical that the first miracle recorded in John's Gospel revealing Jesus' divine power is the changing of water into wine (v. 11).20 One might humanly have expected something more dramatic and directly concerned with the salvation of souls, yet divine humor is not confined by human hopes. Second, not only was the new wine of superior quality, but the amount of wine that the miracle produced was so abundant that the couple could have set up a wine shop with the surplus! Jesus is never described as laughing, but he uses many images as ways of teaching that would have been comical to himself and his listeners. For example, when he describes how difficult it is for rich people to enter the kingdom of God, he uses the image of a camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle (Mark 10:25). The poor would have chuckled over this.

In fact, even the movie "The Passion of the Christ" isn't without one humorous scene. Jesus, standing before Pilate remembers a long ago day when he was working as a carpenter and is building a table, being just like any other son, jokes with his mother when she tells him to take off a dirty apron, and to wash His hands. 

[We need] an unsolemn approach to an unsolemn God ... Our insistence upon being serious with God heavily limits our experience of the Godhead . -Wanda Nash

The holy book is filled with humor. It is the story of divine incongruity- God's pursuing and forgiving love of fickle humankind. God keeps relating to us in such humanly illogical ways that we describe this as divine humor. We expect God to be a distant creator, one who is revengeful because we are so wayward, but the opposite or contrary is the case (Isa 58:9). The Scriptures tell us that God is truly laughing at our human stupidities (Ps 2:4; 37:13). When we laugh at our own stupidities, therefore, we join in the laughter of God, but the laughter of God is a kindly, forgiving and compassionate laughter. And there are humorous incidents aplenty in the Scriptures.

Reluctance to accept the importance of humor in the Scriptures can be due to the failure to read them correctly. And despite the one humorous scene in Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of Christ. It was an immense media success, but still the film dismally failed to express the divine humor of the paschal mystery. It is a film of relentless physical suffering and violence, without the balancing emphasis of the liberating, nonviolent power of the resurrection. Because of this gloomy concentration on violence the film reinforces the incorrect view that joy is somehow foreign to our redemption. On this view, liturgies must be joyless to conform to the sadness of the crucifixion. To be truly holy we must look sad.  Yet at the heart of our redemption by Christ there is the resurrection. From a human perspective this is the mysteriously surprising expression of God's divine humor in which God is laughing at death: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory' (1 Cor 15:54). The resurrection gives us hope that violence is not the way to freedom and healing. For ourselves there will be a time when 'death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away' (Rev 21:4).

This article has lead me to the decision that I need to write two more articles, that will be published at a later date. One on the meanings behind the 3 gifts listed that the wise men brought and one on the issues that the church faces today! You will want to follow this blog so that you can read those when they are published.