The Science of Comedy with God, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello

Everyone laughs, yet what comedy is can sometimes be rather hard to place or name. Some people have comedy down to a science. Two classic examples are Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. The book we are reading in class, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, surprises some people by saying God also is a comedian. I think people are surprised because, like we talked about in class, some try to take all of the human out of Jesus because they are comfortable keeping God at arms length, with worshipping a distant, unrecognizable thing. It is easier to get away with not having a relationship with God if He is hard to relate to. However, Jesus was 100 percent man and 100 percent God, and this makes him extremely relatable, not just mysterious. Last week we learned about how Jesus wept because he felt grief for the loss of his friend, Lazarus. This is something we all can relate to, and it gives us comfort in knowing that God also understands our pain in loss. This week, we learned how God also knows how to laugh, moreover how to crack a joke. The book gives an example of this with the story of Abraham and Sarah. He decides to fulfill His promise of giving Abraham a child. However, He did not do it when Abraham an Sarah were young and full of energy, like they expected. Instead, He blessed them when they were in their 90s. The unexpectedness, the absurdity of this situation caused both Sarah and Abraham to laugh. The interesting perspective the book gives is that maybe God was laughing, too. God created humanity in His own image. Moreover, God has experienced humanity. Jesus loved his family and friends, cried when they left him, probably loved to eat food, and especially loved to laugh and crack jokes. This, I feel, puts the responsibility of having a relationship with God all on us. He understands us, but how much of an effort are we putting into understanding Him?

God has comedy down to a science. He knows how to combine the absurd and unexpected into something we all can relax with loved ones and laugh about. He blessed many people with the gift of comedy to do exactly that, I believe. Here is a famous clip from my favorite comedians, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=airT-m9LcoY