JourneyOnline
YOU HAVE to admit, God has a sense of humour.
He smote an enemy nation with haemorrhoids.
(What do you think this means? Perhaps it means what haemorrhoids are to us, we’re being to him?)
And he brought the Saviour into the world through a 13-16-year-old girl becoming pregnant when she was only betrothed to a guy who’s not the father in an age when such an action would result in a stoning.
If you don’t believe me, go to my website.
See the guys in those pictures? God made that!
Still don’t believe me?
Look at the person sitting next to you right now.
Still not laughing?
When you get home tonight, look in the mirror.
Seriously though, the very fact that we laugh and are made in his image means that he must laugh also.
Because I’m a comedian, I am consistently asked who my favourite comedian is and I always respond: Jesus.
People always look quite bemused.
I thought the answer was obvious.
In the context of his day, Jesus was hilarious.
Because we are so far removed from 1st Century Jewish culture though, we miss it.
Jesus used jokes, street theatre, mimicry, hilarious stories and so on to lampoon the religious people, the Roman occupation, Caesar and the ridiculous laws that people were being oppressed under.
In fact, so biting is his critique, not only would people have laughed, but they also would have oooh’d as they realised that
what he was saying, while true and funny was likely to get him into big trouble.
And it did!
Jesus had this amazing way of making people laugh and getting the message inside them using humour.
If we took ourselves less seriously but took God seriously, maybe the Gospel would be spreading quicker than we could
imagine.
Mark Gladman is a comedian, speaker, author and a radio presenter on 92.9VoiceFM in the Toowoomba Region.
For information about his book 17 Irritating Laws of Followship or live CD Live and Contagious visit www.markgladman.com.
