Have you ever laughed uncontrollably? Not at a funny movie or TV show tickling your funny bone, but just lost in hilarity? I met a girl the other day, whom I shall describe as, say, a flibbertigibbet, a scatterbrain, perhaps. Not ditzy, because I don’t think she’s stupid, but flighty. You know those people who get entirely lost and then breeze in cheerfully an hour after they promised to arrive, yet who are so compellingly attractive in personality that your immediate reaction is fondness. My twin has done her best impression of this sort of person on occasion. Anyway, this girl comes in, of whom we have been privy to much debate in the form of a running commentary by her cousin who is attempting to navigate her to the proper destination. I’m sitting next to a young rascal still ripening to full maturity, shall we say; barely legal to vote and smoke, not to drink. And after a few desultory comments from her, he and I exchange glances and start to bust a gut, as the saying goes. Just doubled over in laughter. My face is as red as a candy apple and I’m finding it difficult to breathe. Nonplussed, the girl inquires as to the source of our hilarity, which only serves to exacerbate the matter. Did she or the other people in the room say anything astoundingly amusing? No, not particularly. Were I pressed to give a reason for our uncontrolled laughter I might reference her blasé attitude coupled with her apparent woeful sense of direction. Grounds for a chuckle, a chortle perhaps, but hardly for the gales of laughter that issued from our lips.
Get to the point, you might well request. (Though if you’re a regular reader of mine you should know better than to demand clarity and simplicity in my writing.) Well, my point, again if pressed, would be something about the nature of laughter, the nature of mirth. G. K. Chesterton’s famous quote that concludes his treatise Orthodoxy is as follows: “There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.” This has always struck me profoundly as I am quick to laugh and eager to find humor in situations. Yet this was not the first time when I was overwhelmed with laughter without a great cause. Several years ago, (golly, it must be over ten at this point; how time flies), my sister and I were in my dad’s office and were talking about innocuous things, not remotely amusing. My sister then lifted her hand and said in a puzzled voice, “is this my left hand?” Nothing more, yet she and I promptly dissolved into fits of laughter similar to the episode I alluded to above.
Why should this be? Did we tap into some deep, vast reservoir of mirth that bubbles merrily below the conscious surface of humanity? Sure, we can laugh at a humorous movie or play; I was rebuked by my twin once for laughing too raucously in a movie theatre. I’ve seen movies that left me pounding the floor, breathless and teary with delight. But that’s not the sort of thing I’m discussing here. I speak of a mirth without any apparent direct cause. It borders on exultation in sharing experiences with others, in observing the minutiae of human behavior, the eccentricities and peculiarities that each human possesses, the gentle acknowledgment of the absurdity of ourselves. I’ve found that these experiences, of a preternatural hilarity, occur after seeing the complete and utter uniqueness of a human expression of intelligence and will. I shall give you a final example.
My dad and I used to play ping-pong at church on random evenings. We would have rousing and hotly contested battles in the foyer of the building, which also served as a temporary supply room for extra folding chairs. On one occasion, the ball scuttled under a pile of chairs and my dad lay prone to reach under and retrieve the errant ball. Finding himself not close enough to reach, he squirmed and wriggled a bit, looking to all eyes (mine) like a floundering fish. Unbidden and unpremeditated I gasped, “Free Willy!” And we both started laughing. For a good solid five minutes we guffawed and roared alternately, especially whenever we looked at each other. One of my fondest memories.
Now, to be sure, this involved a humorous stimulus, but again the inspired analogy that sprang to my lips hardly merited the unbridled euphoria and hilarity that resulted. Again, two people seemed almost to transcend the immediate situation, swept up to a plane of experience not directly related to the surroundings, there to partake of a mirth that, in my case, proved too potent to resist. In each case, I was helpless to arrest my laughter; even as my ribcage and my lungs protested, I could not stop laughing! An amazing phenomenon.
“To the point!” you cry. It is this: like C. S. Lewis’ description and pursuit of joy in his quasi-autobiography Surprised By Joy, have I, and those who have had similar experiences, tapped into a holy laughter, the mirth of God? In infinitesimal measure, sure, but a faint hint of it nonetheless? We like to imagine and revere the Father as holy, just, wise, and sovereign: the supreme Lord of Creation, the Judge of mankind, the noble Sacrificial Lamb and triumphant Redeemer, the Captain of the Hosts of Heaven. And He/They are all these things and immeasurably more. But isn’t it strange that for all the human emotions and behaviors that people experience, the one wholly absent from the Bible is mirth? There is no laughter in the Scriptures, no frivolity or humor. Even bizarre events like Balaam’s talking donkey, which presents possible puns, has a holy purpose and application. Any sarcasm or irony in Paul’s epistles are incidental and aimed more at puncturing puffed-up Pharisees than procuring a chuckle. If God did indeed create man in His own image, then whence comes the laughter? Is this a by-product of the Fall? Shall we never laugh again after the End of Days, even as we enjoy paradise for eternity? I do not see any inherent evil in laughter; like all other earthly things it can and has been perverted, but in essence it remains innocent.
I venture to say that the reason God might have omitted humor from His communiqués to humanity might be to avoid a certain inconsequentiality and irreverence that often accompanies laughter. After all, the court jester’s job was to poke fun at the king, to pull back the somber dignity of authority ever so slightly. And the redemption of man is no laughing matter. The ultimate depravity of man without God must be treated seriously; it cannot be dismissed or downplayed, and even the hint of humor might give grounds for skeptics to discount the entire Bible as fancy. As it stands, one cannot dismiss the Bible as frivolous; either it is deadly serious or it is fantasy. It cannot be funny. Moreover, as fallen humans we are too quick to wish to dull the shine of the majestic and noble, if for no other reason than the reminder they provide of our own shortcomings. God gives us no reason to do so, and the blasphemous inventions of those hostile to the Gospel come from their own imaginations and the human depictions and representations throughout the ages, not from divine Scripture.
But I wonder. I wonder sometimes when, during a frustrating round of golf, I hit a great shot or chip in from a ways away, if God’s not giggling just a little. I feel like He’s playful sometimes, when I’ve been musing on weighty issues for a while, and then I come to myself with a shake of the head and a sensation of wry amusement. I wonder if, after the glorious uniting of the saints with Him, the overthrow of the Devil (that humorless mongrel), the establishment of a new Heaven and Earth, the full realization of who God is and who we are in Him, I wonder if He might not rub His metaphysical hands together gleefully and say:
“Now for the fun part.”
