Why Isn't Jesus Funny

One of the biggest ironies of Jesus' life, in my opinion, was that he was never recorded
telling a joke. I find it hard to believe that Jesus never told a joke around a campfire
during the night about some local Pharisee who got tongue-tied during an important
speech and, in my opinion, to think any different would be laughable. Just as I would
find it hard to believe that jokes are not being told around the water-cooler at the office
on Monday mornings about some boss who messed up in a board meeting. So why
wasn't Jesus ever recorded telling a joke?

To begin with -- many Christians believe in the stoic lifestyle - that to be a true
Christian you must deny yourself pleasure. I feel that Christians think this for one very
important reason -- that saving souls is serious business, and in fact they are correct --
saving lives for one's eternity is serious business, but this lifestyle confuses Christians
into thinking that Jesus didn't have a sense of humor.

But there is more to the reason why Jesus was never shown to be a wit. The joke or
anecdote, he might have used, could have been lost in translation. The Bible has been
translated many times over many years losing some of its clever wordings. For example,
most people do not realize that the "Eye of the Needle" (Matthew 19:24) was actually a
low archway that lead into a town, which was too low for camels to enter. So when Jesus
said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of God;" he was making a very funny, humorous comparison, and it
was apparent to everyone who heard it. But today, the meaning of "The Eye of the
Needle" has been lost.

Another problem is that Jesus' words are so well-known, (I bet you as a minister could
probably quote many of his passages by heart.) which leads to a major problem when
using humor. Laughter comes to a person through surprise, and it is hard to surprise
someone about, for example, the "Speck and Log in your Eye" (Mathew 7:12) parable
when you have heard it so many times before. I bet you smiled the first time you heard
Jesus' words, "Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the beam in your own eye?" Back in Jesus' days, as well, this statement
would have brought smiles to people's faces too. Surprise is extremely important when
you are creating humor, and his words have been repeated so many times that they do not
come to us in a surprising way - losing any chance of laughter.

Finally, the Christian's mind-set and thinking that Jesus was a serious man - an unfunny
man - stops other Christians into thinking that he might have been actually quite funny.
These reasons are why most Christians erroneously think that Jesus wasn't a funny
person.

If 'Jesus wept' (John 11:35) then he was able to show the opposite emotion: laughter.
And if he was able to laugh, he was able to create laughter too. You will come to see just
how funny he was, and the methods he used to generate laughter.

Jesus had to be able to laugh. When you look at the comics of today, you find most of
the greats are Jewish. Jesus dealt with the Jewish people, and they wouldn't have
listened to Him if He didn't show humor. - Sr. Mary Helen Kelley

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