Does God laugh? Perhaps first we must ask, “Does God have a sense of humor?” Our answer to this latter question could well be that God does have a sense of humor. After all, God created us. Yet the Bible confirms we bumbling, fumbling, foolish ones were created for more than God’s amusement. God desired relationship.
The first instance in scripture of which I can think that has anything to do with God and laughter is God’s gift of Isaac to the more recently named and covenanted Abraham and Sarah. Isaac, as you may know, means, “He laughed.” Who wouldn’t laugh at the thought of a 100-year-old man and 90-year-old woman conceiving, bearing, and giving birth to a bouncing, healthy baby boy?
There are also two instances in the Psalms where God is reported to have laughed. In each case it is laughter at God’s enemies, the wicked, who are about to get their due. Actually, the Hebrew word translated into English as laugh does not mean the yuck, yuck, belly laugh of response to something funny or humorous. It means instead to mock in derision.
Laughter does come in different forms. Sometimes it is as response to a humorous situation or words. Sometimes it is the laughter of disbelief at something otherwise inconceivable. Sometimes it is a vengeful mocking over someone’s misfortune or displeasure….especially if they had hurt us in some way. Sometimes we even find ourselves laughing at some small misfortune in our own life.
No doubt being God is a sobering job. Imagine God today witnessing the war in Ukraine, famine in far too many places, oppression in others, pollution that destroys God’s created waters and air and causes intense warming, and prejudice and bigotry in the most comfortable of places. Imagine creating a world and people and seeing it not turn out as you had hoped. It would be difficult to find cause for laughter.
Yet we laugh. You and I. We live in this world God created. We see some of the same horrors. Others we rationalize or miss entirely, usually because we have some part in them. But we laugh.
God created us as we are. God gave us emotions in creation: anger, fear, sorrow, and happiness sometimes expressed in laughter. Why would God give us laughter? As respite and relief from life’s struggles? Perhaps. Certainly, laughter can do that. However, as I think out loud and write down these thoughts, I can’t help but wonder if part of laughter’s function is for us to not take ourselves or even life too seriously.
Oh, there is much in our life and definitely much in life that is very serious. Deadly serious. So serious it is easy to caught up in it all and not be able to come up for air. While laughter may not be able to always bring us to the surface, it may function as a snorkel to breathe in some of that fresh air so we are able to keep going.
There is also much in life that doesn’t make sense. Somethings in life may make sense, but we just don’t see the how and why of it all. Perhaps our gift of laughter is a small form of us, as we take life seriously, but not too seriously, being able to mock life and say, “You don’t have the last laugh on us. God has that last laugh.” That is to say, life is not where the final verdict on our life comes from, God alone has that final verdict. Laughter then, can be resistance to be sucked fully into the world and its ways.
Laughter, then is often a way to show our resistance to some of the world and its ways. It is our resistance to thinking everything is about us and everything is up to us. Laughter can be resistance to even our own self and our own ways.
So, watch reruns of the old sitcoms. Go pay $18.00 to see the Barbie movie. Watch a Mel Brooks movie on Netflix, Chuckle or break out in uproarious laughter. Yes, there is much in life of which to concern us greatly. We need to deal with those serious things seriously. We need also to appreciate the irony, humor and even silliness of life and enjoy a laugh or two to realize we are not the world’s savior. We are merely those who follow that one. In our following there is too often much at which to laugh. I don’t know if God laughs, but God does have to shake God’s head at us and our antics as we too often pretend, we are the saviors of the world.