"Laughter I said, is madness..." Ecclesiastes 2:2
I'm a joker at heart and a huge fan of comedy. I do my best in life to get people to laugh, I love getting people to see the humor in things.
I'm always looking for the next opportunity to drop a one liner or witty (I like to think) anecdote, in work team meetings I'm usually just sitting there waiting for an opportunity to make a gag. Sometimes they are funnier than others – but hey, at least I have a laugh!
Cheap laughs
I've noticed though, a lot of comedians and sitcoms these days seem to love to ridicule holy things, by this I mean predominantly Christian things, things such as God, Jesus, prudence, traditional moral beliefs and various other virtues. It isn't long into a lot of stand-up comedians routines that they will start to rip into God or religion at some point.
These are what I call 'cheap shots' and the audience laughs at the religious people at the butt of these jokes for being so ignorant, so backward and 'behind the times' it's often insinuated that we are somehow below regular intelligence levels because of what we believe or the truths we hold dear.
But it's easy to get cheap laughs, it's easy to lower oneself to the lowest common denominator and offer humor than degrades another and the more smug and proud an individual the more this type of comedy is found funny, but it is a cheap laugh, it is the shallow cackle of the proud and at the end of the day it is short lived.
Deeper things
But comedy was never intended to be the font of all wisdom, by this I mean it is lacking in its ability to answer deeper questions in life, but it serves its purpose and what wonderful purposes it serves!
Humor and laughter has the ability to heal, both psychologically and physically. It has the ability to reflect on hearache and loss and see it with a different eyes and strangely help heal it. How many of us laughed at the scene from the Wedding Singer when Adam Sandler belts out his broken and angry song scribed just after his fiancé leaves him?
It just wouldn't be as funny to those who haven't had their hearts broken! Comedy and satire has the ability to bring across truths amazing ways, it subversively goes around issues that would otherwise be difficult to approach, circumvents blockages and then when you least suspect it, 'Wham!' hits you with a truth bomb.
But sadly like anything, comedy can be used in the wrong way, sometimes it isn't used to heal or to offer truth or show ironies in satire, it is used to tear down, to insult and sometimes sadly, blaspheme holy and sacred things.
But to the type of comedian who uses comedy in this way, the one too smug in their intellectual knowledge to bow their pride to a God who is smarter and wiser than they, and to instead, insult Him – If these kinds of people should suffer, if they should suddenly encounter death or tragedy or life crisis and they had the opportunity for laughs put in front of them – it would mean nothing.
Should you put another comedian in front of them with the same 'comedy stylings' while they are in the land of woe facing their own abyss, let me tell you, the laughs will cease my friend. The contemptuous comedy of the Godless jester flails and deflates like a hot air balloon in the face of pain, loss and tragedy – it is essentially good for nothing.
When comedy is faced with these things and it doesn't receive the laughs it so desires, it just stares blankly, it shrugs its shoulders and heads to the bar for a drink, totally impotent in its ability to offer anything of value. As it says in Ecclesiastes "Laughter is madness", this is because outside a deeper understanding of life through the knowledge of God – it makes no sense and can offer little comfort to a hurting soul – because it lacks the wisdom to.
For moments like these it is only the deeper things in life, things that the Godless comedian discards, things like a belief and understanding of God, virtues, love and ultimate truths – these are the things that offer light, understanding and solace to a hurting and grieving soul – not laughs.
A virtuous refuge
Believe me though, to those friends or family members who ridicule you for your faith, who like the smug comedian make fun of your standards and virtues, when they should encounter a time of crisis and are forced to face the bigger questions in life, they won't be running to the bawdy YouTube comedian for answers, because they know they won't have any.
These jesters won't be able to offer any deeper comfort for they are ignorant of the deeper truths in life. When faced with crisis these people will undoubtedly run to you the 'prude', the 'religious one' to the 'bigot' because they will have seen something deeper in you. They won't always agree or believe the same as you (nor do they have to) but they will sense something of your inner strength – they will sense something deeper in you, this is the knowledge of God and His wisdom, which ironically has been gained by you believing and cherishing all the things that they ridicule and poke fun at you for!
So Christian, take the cheap shots, ignore the crummy sitcoms that rip into what you believe, count it all as froth and bubble – without any true substance. Take it all in stride because at the end of the day, the very things you are ridiculed for will be the very things that those who make fun will seek out in you and whom will find comfort and refuge in when their life is crumbling down around them.
Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us.
Ecclesiastes 7:3
Tim Everton is a youth worker and designer from the beautiful Southern Coast of South Australia. In his off-time he loves to drink coffee and cause his girlfriend's eyes to roll with his outrageously witty humor. He also loves creating and designing all manner of things and has recently started a new venture consisting of running workshops and teaching people how to create miniature nerdy things, if nerdy things may be of interest to you, feel free to check out his websites http://miniatureworldsworkshop.weebly.com/ & https://www.facebook.com/miniatureworldsworkshop/
Tim Everton's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/tim-everton.html