In a letter Sigmund Freud wrote to his friend Edoardo Weiss on April 12, 1933, he reminisced about a visit to the Roman church of San Pietro in Vincoli: “Every day for three lonely weeks of September 1913, I stood in church in front of the statue, studying it, measuring it and drawing it until there dawned on me that understanding which I expressed in my essay.” His obsession with the statue of Moses reflected the anxiety it had caused its sculptor, for—according to tradition—when it was completed Michelangelo struck the statue with his chisel: “Say something!” Genius could not give it the life of which God alone is the author. In a form more accessible to children, Michelangelo was Geppetto wanting his wooden doll to become a real boy. And in more exalted cadences, this was Ezekiel asking, “Can these bones live?”
“In him was life . . .” (John 1:4). At the Last Supper, the youngest apostle had pressed his head against Christ and could hear the beating of the Sacred Heart that had animated all creation. Only God can create life, but he has given his creatures the ability to “procreate.” This seems to have been the ultimate secret that he kept until he left this world in glory, promising to send to his believers his Holy Spirit, the bond of fecund love between him and his Divine Father. In the fourth century, Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote “. . . he gave this glory to his disciples when he said to them: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (John 20:22). Although he had always possessed it, even before the world existed, he himself received this glory when he put on human nature. Then, when his human nature had been glorified by the Spirit, the glory of the Spirit was passed on to all his kin, beginning with his disciples.”
When people ask if Christ had a sense of humor, remember this: a sense of humor is basically a balanced mind’s perception of imbalance. Unbalanced people laugh at what is not funny. Fanatics, by definition, are a little off kilter, and so they have no sense of humor. As the Perfect Man, Christ had a perfect sense of humor and must have smiled most broadly when he spoke to his gathered followers, the nucleus of his Holy Church, in anticipation of the new Pentecost that completed the symmetry of fifty days after the Resurrection. He told them: “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:25-27).
-Fr. George William Rutler
5.30.20
Jesus said to the fishermen: “I will make you fishers of men”.
A dry sense of humor; a man who liked puns.
I think about this from time to time. One can’t help but notice the Jewish sense of humor is keen. How could the Lord be the exception. And as Fr. Rutler rightly says, it is a sign of a sharp mind. I can’t think of Jesus as being dour, He had to laugh at whatever was funny. I remember reading Greek Comedies in college. I laughed out loud at them, they were hilarious. It blew my mind people laughed at the same things back then that they do now. Our God gave us that splendid behavior to give us joy. He didn’t have to, we could have walked around like zombies never laughing, and still go to heaven, but He didn’t. We are made in His image. Humor is part of it.
“A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief“, (Is 53:3)
His public ministry began with the 40 days of temptation in the wilderness against Lucifer himself; ended with the agony in the garden, sweating drops of blood and the crucifixion. In between He healed, restored, forgave, delivered, cast out demons, cleansed the Temple, cried for the suffering and the dead; cried for Jerusalem.
He came to deliver a people facing eternal damnation due to rebellion and sin – at the cost of His life.
I don’t see a sense of humor. And I don’t see it as even necessary or appropriate. When I think of great Kings I see something much higher than “humor”. When I think of the King of Kings on His Throne Of judgement and glory … humor is not on the pallet of possibilities, in my mind. I don’t see it in Scripture; I don’t see the Fathers meditating on it.
It’s sort of like the way they never smile in old photographs, I guess.
When I think of “humor”, a “sense of humor“, I think of it in terms of laughing at the inexplicable – “a balanced mind’s perception of imbalance” as you say. Some have said laughter always (usually) involves someone’s suffering, your own or someone else’s. Perhaps that is all true. Humor seems to come with the fallen human condition. Perhaps it is the conflict between our raised nature as we should be and the fallen nature that leads to all our mistakes.
Joy, however, is another matter.
What you wrote of above is joy – a fruit of the Spirit: “(Jesus) must have smiled most broadly when he spoke to his gathered followers, the nucleus of his Holy Church, in anticipation of the new Pentecost that completed the symmetry of fifty days after the Resurrection.”
That’s not humor but pure joy. And of that there will be plenty in heaven. oceans of it. Perhaps joy replaces humor when the fallen nature is raised to our perfected nature, rendering “imbalance” a thing of memory.
I have always believed that a healthy sense of humor was a sure marker for holiness.
Jesus never displayed humor. It is silly to think he did.
God created humor. There’s a season for everything.
I have no doubt that Jesus has a most excellent
sense of humor.