Does Christianity Have a Sense of Humor?
Friedrich Nietzsche, the infamous 19th century atheist, was raised in a Christian home that apparently was mostly joyless. Very little laughter must have echoed in its hallways, for later on Nietzsche would often observe that he might be more inclined to believe in redemption if Christians actually looked a little more redeemed. To him, Christianity had no sense of humor.
Perhaps all too often, Nietzsche has been correct. To be sure, there is much to be serious about in Christianity. Our faith makes serious claims about God and fallen humanity, sin and salvation, heaven and hell. "How will we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3). Nevertheless, the same God who makes such eternally grave claims upon us is also the One who creates giraffes, baboons, camels, and avocado pits. And laughter.
Nietzsche, who certainly knew firsthand about chronic pain and intense suffering but doggedly persisted in laughing his way through it, was convinced that Christians' long faces were largely Jesus' fault. Nietzsche admired Jesus, but only to a point: "He knew only tears and the melancholy of the Hebrew. Would that he had remained in the wilderness and far from the good and the just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and to love the earth-and laughter too." But Nietzsche was just plain wrong about Jesus.
The writer who has probably done the most to correct our misconceptions about our Savior in this regard is Elton Trueblood, the Quaker philosopher who wrote The Humor of Christ 40 years ago. Trueblood confesses early in the book that it took the wisdom of a child, his four-year-old son, to jar him out of his well-worn assumptions about Jesus as a staid sage.
During family devotional time, as Trueblood read from the Sermon on the Mount, suddenly their little boy began to laugh. "He laughed because he saw how preposterous it would be for a man to be so deeply concerned about a speck in another person's eyes, that he was unconscious of the fact his own eye had a beam in it," Trueblood wrote. "Because the child understood perfectly that the human eye is not large enough to have a beam in it, the very idea struck him as ludicrous."
If the absurd image of a man (a carpenter, perhaps?) stumbling around with a 2 x 4 sticking out of his eye-trying, no less, to help someone else remove a speck of sawdust from her eye-is not enough, let us consider Jesus' apparent love for puns and word plays. He was not content simply to say, "You Pharisees get so obsessed with all your little rules and regulations!" No, in his native Aramaic tongue it becomes clear that he punned: "You strain out a gnat [kalma] but you gulp down a camel [gamla]!" (Matthew 23:24, author's translation).
"Kalma-gamla," it has a nice ring to it. New Testament scholar George Lyons suggests that this was one Jesus' obvious attempts at humor. "Those of us who consider the pun not to be the lowest form of humor, but its most sophisticated expression, are encouraged by this," says my friend, George. Interestingly, the laws of Moses did in fact prohibit the eating of swarming insects (Deuteronomy 14:19). (You'd have to wonder who would be tempted to do that.)
In their fastidiousness, at least some Pharisees were known to pour their wine through cloth to remove any tiny bugs that might be swimming around in there. They strained out gnats! Was there a sparkle in Jesus' eye when he added that, at the same time, his critics were capable of downing an entire camel, a large, bulking, monstrous, "unclean" animal, hoofs and hump and all" (Leviticus 11:4). Then there was the one about the camel and the needle's eye.
C.S. Lewis wrote a little poem to illustrate: All things (e.g., a camel's journey through A needle's eye) are possible, it's true. But picture how the camel feels, squeezed out In one long bloody thread from tail to snout.(Epigrams and Epitaphs)
Jesus was adept at creating vivid pictures to get the point across. Another one of those pictures that is usually overlooked occurs when Jesus teaches his disciples about nonviolence and going the extra mile. "If someone wants to sue you and take your tunic [i.e., inner garment], let him have your cloak [outer garment] as well" (Matthew 5:40). What would be left? A naked disciple.
Jesus probably did not intend anyone to take him literally in this regard, but how much more lively is his imagery than if he had simply taught us, his followers, not to be people who parade around insisting on our rights and property.
These examples from Jesus' teachings could be multiplied, but it is safe to assume that a lot of people didn't get it. Of course, different things are funny to different people. According to the Apostle Paul, there was something inherently funny to the Jews, who asked for signs, and to the Greeks, who sought wisdom, about a Messiah on a cross. Utterly laughable.
Yet Paul, Christ's fool, continued to preach "Christ crucified . . . for the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength . . . but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise| God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1: 23, 25, 27).
He who laughs last laughs best.
Holiness Today
Please note: All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of original publication but may have since changed.
