Information Related to "The Humor of Jesus Christ"
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Would the great Messiah laugh at a good joke? Did He laugh like regular folks
when He walked on earth? Chances are, if you're like I was, you've
never given the humor of Christ serious thought!
But we can learn a lot from laughing, especially laughing with Jesus at what
He found funny. Odd thing is, He was often laughing at you and me and everybody
else because of the fickle foibles of human nature. One writer contends: "The
widespread failure to recognize and to appreciate the humor of Christ is
one of the most amazing aspects of the era named for Him. Anyone who reads
the Synoptic Gospels [Matthew, Mark and Luke] with a relative freedom from
presuppositions might be expected to see that Christ laughed, and that He
expected others to laugh, but our capacity to miss this aspect of His life
is phenomenal" (Elton Trueblood, The Humor of Christ, p. 15).
So what type of humor did Christ use? One type is hyperbole (pronounced hi-PER-bo-lee). It is exaggeration for effect—making an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally. Examples include: "If I've told you once, I've told you fifty thousand million times—don't exaggerate!" "I'm as hungry as a horse!" "He's as strong as an ox," or, "He's as smart as an ox"—oops, that's an oxymoron, which is a sort of paradox. We'll save that for later.
Jesus Christ loved good hyperbole. In His famous Sermon on the Mount He wove a marvelous extravagance: "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye" (Luke 6:41-42).
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