HUMOUR

Humour

Does God have a sense of humour? Well, one of the greatest gifts God has bestowed on His little man-mirrors is our sense of humour. We laugh because God laughs. Scripture says, ‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: … a time to weep, and a time to laugh’ Ecclesiastes 3:1&4a. The Hebrew word for laugh here is the same word as laugh in the following, ‘He who sits in the heavens shall laugh’ Psalm 2:4a. Therefore, we indeed laugh because God laughed first.

Glasgow Museum

Unlike the rest of us who are broke images of God, Jesus is ‘the express image of His person’ Hebrews 1:3. And, though ‘a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’, Jesus has a sense of humour. For example, picture a plank of wood, a length of 4 x 2. Now picture it sticking out from someone’s eye. ‘And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye”, and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye’ Matthew 7:3-5. If the Teacher of teachers used it, then humour is a good teaching tool.

Scripture says, ‘For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made’ Romans 1:20a. If, for example, we can see the beauty, majesty and goodness of God in the things God has created, are we then also able to see His humour? Two of God’s creations immediately spring to my mind, the dung beetle, and the duck billed platypus. The former is comical to watch as it rolls a ball of dung around the place, and latter because it looks like a cross between a duck and a beaver! A mammal, the male of which has retractable venomous spurs, and the female of which can lay eggs? Never! British scientists were astounded the first time they got to view the first one brought back to Britain from Australia. They thought it was some kind of hoax. Yes, God does indeed have a sense of humour.

Surely the Lord’s Apostle was using irony when he was correcting the false teaching of the Judaizers, who were trying to tell the Galatians that they needed to be circumcised to be right with God. Remember, it was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that Paul wrote, ‘As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!’ Galatians 5:12. Ouch!

Ill timed humour can be dangerous and damaging. Minor: I know someone who was told that it is not good to smile while mentioning the word ‘Hell’. Major: I suppose the old yelling ‘Fire!’ in a packed movie theatre for a laugh is still the best example. But, what about the following? ‘And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men’ 1 Corinthians 15:17-19. No Resurrection of the dead?
Who would play such a cruel joke on mankind? What distorted sense of humour would foist such a horrible hoax on humanity? Only Satan, or someone like him, would. However, as Christians we have the testimony of the two witnesses, i.e., the Spirit working with the Word, that ‘Christ has indeed been raised from the dead’ 1 Corinthians 15:20a