11.05.2009

Humor

While searching the web today I came upon a page published on the web by "Donald Wayne Viney, Midwest Quarterly (Winter 1997)," The Humor of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a great article that talks about the humor of Christ. I think that too often we believe that Jesus was this ultra strict, ultra conservative, ultra... i don't know, just this person who showed no emotion, and when he did he only showed love or anger. The quintessential verse of Jesus' emotions are from the passage in the Gospels (Matt. 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 2) where Jesus enters into the temple courts and begins driving out the tables of the moneychangers because they were dishonest. We often see these moments of Jesus' emotions, in the temple, on the cross, in the garden. 
But we never see Jesus laughing. I don't know why the Gospel writers didn't choose to include these in their writings, but I have to believe that Jesus had a sense of humor. As the article, linked above says "Jesus was a real man who enjoyed life." If Jesus was truly God, and truly man as we believe then could he have possibly made it through 30 plus years of life on this earth without laughing once? Umberto Eco, through William of Bakersville (in Il Nome Della Rosa) says "Jesus was a man and that laughter is 'proper to man.'"
If Jesus was a man, Jesus laughed. (man being, at least in my interpretation, mankind, not just the male gender)
John says in his Gospel that Jesus did many Jesus did many things not written down, I would have to assume that Jesus' humor would have to be included in this.



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