The idea of humor and God is peculiar, perhaps mysterious. Most expressions of humor or comedy, in a popular sense, tend to be degrading or derogatory; a sort of tearing down, as opposed to building up. Can we imagine what a holy, righteous, perfect God would find funny? Would He laugh at misfortune, foolishness, insults, or perversity? No Christian would think so. The Son of Man has no depiction of cracking jokes at anyone’s expense. He showed sadness, anger, love, leadership, passion, wit, faith, empathy—but nothing in the way of modern comedy. Perhaps the closer we are to God, we find inevitable laughter in supernatural joy, the likes of which comedy could never even hope for.
May we be more enlightened, more mindful of what we find funny, and seek a laughter which builds hearts and minds, instead of tearing them down.
“His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness.
There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”
Excerpt From
Orthodoxy
G. K. Chesterton
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