And did you ever hear anyone break the solemn silence during the reading of God's Word with a hearty haw-he-haw?
But God does have a funny bone. There's a picture near my desk of Jesus laughing, but often I wonder, did I miss the joke? Did I do something hilarious but the humor in it was so high over my head, only someone closer to heaven could have caught it?
There is humor in the Bible, you know. Mostly it's hard to recognize because we take the Word of God so seriously. As we should. But taking it seriously doesn't mean we can't laugh.
The secret to discovering what's witty in Scriptures is visualization -- bringing the featured characters to life with your imagination, seeing them as real people.
Visualize, for example, the Pharisees -- pompous know-it-alls who want to impress everyone with their "superior" knowledge. Imagine their horror when they discover that a lowly Nazarean carpenter knows more than they do.
The last thing they want is for people to think they agree with Jesus.
So they bombard Jesus with questions to prove his "inferiority" and Jesus replies, "What? Don't tell me you want to become my disciples, too!"
More than a few of them probably tripped over their robes trying to get out of that one.
Or what about the bumbling disciples? Simon Peter must have fallen asleep during some of his own conversations with Jesus. One minute he's coming up with the brilliant, lantern-over-the-head revelation that Jesus is the Christ, and the next minute he says something so stupid, Jesus calls him demonic. I guess his lantern went out.
And then there's the one about Lazarus. The man's been dead four days. No wonder Martha gasped when Jesus ordered the tomb stone to be rolled away.
"But it will stink!" she exclaimed. And this bright comment came right after she told Jesus it's never too late for a miracle. She must have used Peter's lantern.
No wonder Jesus finds humor in some of the serious things I do. I'm no smarter than Peter or Martha. God is probably amused by me much the way I get amused by my little kids when they try to act like grown-ups. It's amazing the jokes we discover if we step out of our personal comic strips and look at our lives from the outside.
Take, for another example, the day our dog died.
My husband, my two kids and I cried as we said our final good-byes to our friend of more than 13 years. Our sorrow was so deep that after we loaded the dog's failing body into the car for that final trip to the vet, we embraced each other in a group hug.
The dog looked at us, dumbfounded, no doubt wondering what we were doing. Never before had the four of us -- all at the same time, all on the same three square inches of floor -- chorused a song of boo-hoos.
Suddenly seeing us through the dog's eyes, I had to laugh. Even in the midst of this absolutely unfunny situation, I had to laugh.
© 1990 by Terry A. Modica
