The Gospel is a Joke

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I don’t mean “the Gospel is a joke” in a pejorative way. I mean it in a metaphorical way:

  • When you hear it, you either get it or you don’t.
  • You can explain it and explain it and explain it and people will still not get it.
  • Sometimes after years of not getting it, something happens in your life that makes you say, “Oh, now I get it.” We call this feeling an epiphany.
  • You can tell by the quality of their laughter whether or not people get it. Some laugh along because they think they’re supposed to. Some assume that to be good, the joke must be at someone’s expense…
  • …but the best jokes are not told at anyone else’s expense. The best presentations of the Gospel contain no malice or contempt.
  • Sometimes you hear it so often you stop laughing. But maybe one day it sneaks up on you and you get it again, and you start laughing and can’t stop.
  • Sometimes you laugh so hard it hurts. Sometimes you laugh through your tears.
  • Sometimes you hear it and it’s not funny. Sometimes it’s the delivery. Other times it’s your attitude.
  • Something about being with other people who get it makes you laugh that much harder. Sometimes a group of you start laughing and you can’t stop, because you keep each other going. These moments of joy are when you feel most strongly that life is good, that this is a slice of heaven, and you want it to never end.
  • Sometimes when you try to tell it, it’s not funny. Usually it is because you are trying too hard. The best humor and the best Gospel emerges from being authentically human.
  • When you tell a really good joke, nobody stops you by saying, “Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” because it’s worth hearing again.
  • Sometimes you don’t laugh, but you smile inside.

100 thoughts on “The Gospel is a Joke”

  2. Making the connection, in whatever tenet you believe, is always a prelude to feeling warm and fuzzy inside. And perhaps we need not take ourselves so seriously, as you suggest. Have you ever seen the Gary Larson cartoon showing God creating the world as a chef and shaking some humans into the mix, just to make it interesting? I suspect that even God has a sense of humor, especially during those times I am being ‘authentically human’ and stumble over my own two feet. Catchy title! You got my attention. 😉

  7. I saw the title on Freshly Pressed & assumed it was an anti-christian post so I only came here out of curiosity & saw your opening sentence. I always got a laugh out of the account where Jesus was calling the Pharisees to account because of their hypocrisy & pronouncing a bunch of woes on them. One of them said “In saying these things you offend us” so Jesus then pronounced even more woes on them (Luke 11:39-52)
    Nice post

  10. Well I wonder how receptive Muslim radicals would be to the same idea being applied to their religion? Of to people of any religion who feel they are being unfairly targeted. Moreover why the need for atheists to be so bombastic. And it is not like I do not see their concerns but I do not believe Dancing Bear or Scooby Doo being a fantasy is a reason to become animated or distraught.

  12. If indeed, the gospel is a joke, then I’m laughing myself all the way to Heaven , no doubt. I do take the gospel quite seriously, well, the Bible, if that is what you are referring to. LOL Yes, I didn’t read the whole article, apologies. I will come back to read it some other time. But for now, my comment is only to the title of the article.

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  16. Some of the best moments are shared laughter and my ‘little’ brother figures in several of the most memorable, he has the best catching, full out laughing moments in my memory box. (He is a pantheist rather than a monotheist, on the whole, maybe more jokes in his life? I hope not, I do get quite a few in my corner of monotheism, on the whole)

    I especially like “the best presentations contain no malice or contempt” bit.
    Thanks

  21. why are you saying this? what’s your angle? Your trip? what’s in it for you? for all your pithy sayings. yawn.

  25. Reblogged this on A Path of Living Stones and commented:
    Found this on Fresh Pressed. Many of the points I found to be true. There have been several times when jokes have been told and they did not come across the way that I had intended. NOTE: Don’t let the post title mislead you.

  27. Seriously, the message of the gospel (the way) is really a paradox, and “getting it” simply means that you understand and accept the message. Those who do not accept it can simply say, “I get it, but I don’t agree.” Too serious for this discussion?

  30. I don’t get it … but that’s nothing new as I like looking at the Gospel – Good News as TRUTH … not a phor anything … 🙂 God bless you all.

  31. That’s beautiful. That actually came up in a seminary class I was in last week. The teacher was talking about how you should always give a sermon as if you were telling it to someone who didn’t know anything about the Message we have, because, the truth is, there is always someone who hasn’t heard it or needs to hear it in church. That immediately drew my mind to the experience of telling a good joke to a mixed group of friends – even if only one person hasn’t heard it before, as long as there’s one person that hasn’t heard it, everyone laughs, and often hard. There’s some kind of joy that we have about telling a familiar joke to someone that’s never heard it – it brings them into your circle. It brings friends closer together. The same is true about the Gospel, only moreso – it makes us a Family. It makes us a part of the same body… anyways… it sounds like I need to make a blog article about this, too. God bless and thanks for the inspiration! 😀 😀 😀

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