THE LAUGHTER OF OUR LORD: HOLY HUMOR, SACRED COWS, POMPOUS PIETY, and CHRISTIAN FAITH

God's people need to display the joy that radiates from God's love. A good laugh is a good angle for viewing our Lord and representing him to others. The gospel of Christ is a heavenly comedy, the grand reversal, the supposed impossibility suddenly becoming possible. It's redeeming love jumping out of the hat of miserable humanity right from the heart of God. The church today needs to get beyond the heavy religious breathing of its formal theologizing and institutionalizing. It needs a fresh means of delivering its classic messages. Christian theology without the energy and insights of humor is too feeble to be adequate, too stiff to be inviting. How about a little laughing with our Lord and getting a little fun back in our fundamentalism? The search is on for holy humor in the Bible, the ministry of Jesus, and the underside of today's church life. The good news of Jesus should be freed from excessive sobriety. Christians should relax, relate, be winsome people. Taking the risk of being viewed as "fools" (1 Cor 1:27-30), we are to be blessed with what Paul once called hilarotes (English hilarity).