JESUS’ SENSE OF HUMOR

Remember Archie Bunker in the TV series All In The Family? Humor was used to get across things that are hard for us to accept. Jesus, too, loved to use humor to get across some of his more difficult points.

Just imagine a man walking down the street with a telephone pole in his eye, then stopping to get a splinter out of someone else’s eye (Matthew 7:3).

Then there are the Pharisees who were so careful that they held a strainer over their soup to be sure they didn’t swallow anything evil, then turned right around and chomped down on a smelly, dirty camel ~ hoofs, humps, fat lips, yellow teeth, and all (Matthew 23:24).

What about missing out on God’s big wedding celebration? "I've just bought a house on eBay and I need to go see whether it really does have bathrooms". The next says in effect "I've just bought a used car over the phone and I need to go see if it has wheels". (Luke 14:16-24)

Just imagine a big ole camel trying to twist and turn and squeeze his way through ~ you’ll never believe this ~ the eye of a needle (Mark 10:25). C’m on now!

Jesus couldn’t help but poke fun of the hypocrites who fasted, then got stage paint to make their faces disfigured and ugly so people would think they were realllllllly suffering (Matthew 6:16).

But the best joke of all is the joke played on Satan. Some of the early church fathers thought so. The most wonderful and humorous irony in history is the great reversal of man’s destiny. Death is not the end, but the beginning of real life. The greatest one liner ever told was “Christ is risen!”

Indeed, we say with Solomon, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine” (Proverbs 17:22 ~ KJV).