The best medicine

Only a religion that laughs at itself—but not at God—has half a chance at saving us from ourselves and delivering us safely to our destination. A serious faith—one that cannot let a giggle go between its passions and prayers—has little chance of saving anyone because it has no actual destination, only an itinerary: 'Climb aboard! We're on our way!'

Visiting the blog of a commenting reader of this, I found the poster that I reproduce here, a colorful rendition of what I thought was going to be a serious prayer, until I got to its ironic ending—ironic, but how true—and I was able to close and affirm it with more than a verbal 'amen'—with a smile and a little laugh as well. Nothing disrespectful here.

I have written on the question, Did Jesus ever laugh? Of course, He did, even if we don't find a bible verse 'Jesus laughed' to support this. Unless we believe in the manhood of the Christ as well as the deity, we cannot accept the fact that His daily life and concerns were no different from our own. Semantic wars have been fought over this. It is important.

My favorite film on the life of Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, portrays a very serious Jesus. In my opinion, it has only one real flaw. Christ doesn't laugh, He hardly ever smiles, He never even blinks His eyes. Resembling an ikon, this is the monophysite Christ of the Christian idealist. The beauty of the Transcendent moving among us as Immanent.

My other favorite film about Jesus is The Gospel of John. Here, Christ not only smiles, but laces His words with at least hints of laughter, all without detracting from one very serious fact: Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He doesn't look much like the Christ of the ikons, but He walks much like the God who loves us.

Alexandria versus Antioch. That's how the sides in the semantic wars over the Divine Nature lined up. Neither side was entirely right or wrong. In the end, both were fused in a dual unity just as the God-manhood of the Christ was proclaimed. But history is long and people forget. We are always falling asleep and always being awakened. Does God laugh? I don't know, but I know that Jesus does.

Thank you, Winter, for bringing me around to rekindle this fact: God is love, love laughs, and laughter is, as they say, the best medicine.