In this episode Trent breaks down a 2000-year-old Christian debate on whether Jesus laughed and if laughter is appropriate for Christians.

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Transcript:

Jesus Never Laughed?

There are people who say Jesus never existed, or that Jesus was a psychedelic mushroom.

But did you know some people say Jesus Christ never laughed because laughter is contrary to divinity?

And this isn’t just some random people who say this. You can find modern-day clerics, Protestant reformers, and even some of the Church Fathers arguing, to one degree or another, that Jesus never laughed—in some cases because laughter is a bad thing.

So in today’s episode, we will take on this joke of an argument and talk about how humor helps us share the Gospel.

First, let’s take a look at sedevacantist bishop Donald Sanborn’s thoughts on this question.

Clip:

“Does our Lord have a sense of humor?”

“No.”

“And why is that, Your Excellency?”

“Because humor involves the association of absurd concepts. For example, in slapstick comedy, think of a lady at a table, beautifully dressed, and then somebody puts a pie in her face.

“That’s two ideas—dignity and indignity—together. And then you laugh because she has a pie in her face.

“Anything humorous is the association of two absurd things—in other words, things that contradict each other. And so our Lord, in his obviously divine intellect and in his sacred human intellect with infused knowledge, could not do that.”

So, a few things I need to mention.

First, I love his example of comedy. It sounds like a bad routine from Krusty the Clown.

Second, it’s obvious that Jesus Christ had a sense of humor because Jesus would often make absurd comparisons in order to educate people.

He said, for example, that you should take the plank out of your own eye before removing the speck in your brother’s eye, which is an absurd comparison but also kind of humorous in pointing out hypocrisy.

You can also see Jesus’ humor in his use of puns, or plays on words, like when he scolded the Pharisees for fixating on minor Jewish laws and ignoring the major laws.

He said:

“You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”
—Matthew 23:24

A gnat is a tiny, ritually unclean animal, while a camel is a huge unclean animal.

But what makes this funny is that it’s also a play on words in Aramaic. A gnat is galma, while a camel is gamla.

You avoid galmas but eat gamlas, you hypocrites!

Third, this is all very ironic coming from Bishop Sanborn, who was validly ordained to the episcopacy but broke away from the SSPX to form the SSPV, or Society of St. Pius V, to promote sedevacantism, which says there has been no valid pope since 1958.

Honestly, I’m waiting for someone to found the SSPI, or Society of St. Pius I, and restore the liturgy to its true roots in Koine Greek spoken in the second century.

Sedevacantism itself is an absurd proposition that promotes laughter because it claims the one true Church Christ established is the Catholic Church, but that Catholic Church has been reduced to a handful of priests and bishops scattered around the world who have lacked a pope to unify them for nearly 70 years.

This claim contradicts popes Bishop Sanborn does believe in, like Pope Leo XIII, who said the Church:

“Must uniformly remain to the end of time.”

And Pope Pius IX, who said that schismatics:

“Deny also the indefectibility of the Church and blasphemously declare that it has perished throughout the world and that its visible Head and the bishops have erred.”

Sedevacantism makes me laugh in the same way I laugh when I see so-called sovereign citizens argue in a courtroom.

They say the U.S. government doesn’t have valid jurisdiction over them and make a series of convoluted arguments related to obscure legal codes, like spelling their name differently to represent their true legal standing in court.

But of course, no matter how technical your argument is, the U.S. government really does exist, and you have to obey it just like the rest of us.

And likewise, no matter how technical your sedevacantist argument from some obscure piece of canon law or older magisterial teaching is, Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, headed by the successor of St. Peter, does exist, and you have to obey it just like the rest of us.

Second, to say Christ couldn’t laugh because the divine is incompatible with the absurd totally undermines the Incarnation.

Because in becoming man, the divine dwells among us, which means the divine is in the midst of an absurd and sinful world.

And so Jesus could produce laughter by pointing out those absurdities.

This would be like saying that because grief refers to a state of sadness related to loss, and because God cannot lose anything, Jesus could never cry in grief—even though the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, plainly says:

“Jesus wept.”

Clip:

“Our Lord would smile.”

“But you wouldn’t say that he laughed?”

“Sure, he smiled when the little children were brought to him. He was very approachable. He was humble. Those children did something. Could that have made him laugh? Perhaps. I don’t know.

“I would tend to say that he didn’t laugh, but he smiled.”

Now, you might be thinking this is just one crank sedevacantist bishop.

But you can find many examples of people throughout history making this kind of argument for a variety of reasons.

Someone once told the Protestant evangelist Billy Graham:

“I have a friend who’s very solemn, and he says he doesn’t believe in laughing or cracking jokes, because Jesus never laughed, and we ought to be like Jesus.”

To which Graham responded:

“I feel sorry for your friend.”

In 1928, the Episcopal bishop Irving P. Johnson wrote about the need for more “pious hilarity,” but also said:

“Of course Christ Himself was not hilarious. He could not laugh because He bore the sins of the world and was constantly facing humiliation and death.”

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said one of his personal resolutions was:

“To labor after continual seriousness, not willingly indulging myself in any the least levity of behavior, or in laughter; no, not for a moment.”

In 1652, the Scottish clergyman Alexander Ross wrote:

“It is strange then, that neither Prophet, Historian, Apostle, nor Evangelist, should speak a word of his laughing, and yet so punctually mention to us his griefs, sorrows, and weeping: therefore not without cause did Chrysostom, Austin, Basil, Bernard, and others conclude negatively, that Christ never laughed.”

And:

“Seldom or never is laughing in Scripture taken in a good sense; it is called madness, and like the cracking of thorns: laughing is threatened to end in sorrow, and woe is denounced to those that laugh; but a blessing to the mourners.”

The Problem With Arguing From Silence

You can see a few different kinds of errors in this thinking.

One is a version of sola Scriptura which says, “X didn’t happen,” or “We shouldn’t do X,” unless X is described in Scripture.

But the end of John’s Gospel says:

“There are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
—John 21:25

Which is, of course, a humorous exaggeration.

Jesus and the apostles could have done many things that are not described in Scripture—like sitting around laughing at the reactions of infants they baptized.

So merely pointing to a silence in Scripture and then saying that silence proves something never happened puts your argument on really shaky ground.

But another version of this argument appeals to hyper-traditionalists who idealize the past so much that they fail to see where it may have been in error or subject to development.

The Church Fathers on Laughter

For example, when we look at the Church Fathers, there were some who treated laughter as a bad thing.

The second-century author Clement of Alexandria has a whole chapter on laughter in his Paedagogus, where he criticizes the gelōtopoioi, which comes from the words for “laughter” and “make.”

Literally, they are “laughter-makers,” which later English translators called “wags.”

Clement writes:

“If, then, wags are to be ejected from our society, we ourselves must by no manner of means be allowed to stir up laughter.”

A few centuries later, St. John Chrysostom was very worried about laughter and said:

“Let us shed tears which are the seeds of great joy, and not laugh with that laughter which brings forth the gnashing of teeth for us.”

Though in other contexts Chrysostom says laughter can be non-sinful, especially when you laugh at evil things or bad things like death.

But Chrysostom was an admirer of not laughing, given that he says of Christ:

“Nowhere did he laugh.”

And again, in his homilies on Hebrews, he says:

“Tell me, do you laugh? Where do you hear of Christ doing this? Nowhere.”

And:

“He wept; and do you laugh? If he who grieves not over the sins of others deserves to be accused, of what consideration will he be worthy, who is without sorrow for his own sins, yea laughs at them?

“This is the season of grief and tribulation, of bruising and bringing matter—the body—of conflicts and sweatings, and do you laugh?”

About 130 years after Chrysostom died, the Rule of St. Benedict made laughter pretty much anathema among monks.

It advised those practicing spiritual discipline:

“Not to speak useless words or words that move to laughter.”

And:

“Not to love much or boisterous laughter.”

Now, modern Benedictines will say that this rule is really referring to inappropriate laughter or laughter that doesn’t fit the occasion.

But we see in Church history a gradual shift away from a really uptight or rigid attitude toward laughter.

Aquinas and the Medieval Shift

In Peter Jones’s book Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century, he notes how scholastic theologians of the time focused more on the interior disposition of laughter rather than the mere act of laughing.

You can see this in St. Thomas Aquinas correcting those who tried to use Ambrose and Chrysostom to condemn all humor.

Aquinas says:

“Ambrose does not altogether exclude fun from human speech.”

And:

“This saying of Chrysostom refers to the inordinate use of fun.”

Jones shows that during this period laughter wasn’t just for entertainment.

It was intimately bound up in temporal and spiritual power.

He talks, for example, about risus, Latin for laughter, in relation to risus mysticus, or laughter that comes from mystical or supernatural knowledge; risus blasphemus, or laughing at sacred things; and risus regalis, the laughter of a king that communicates confidence and leadership.

This can be seen in the 12th-century English monarch Henry II, who used witty banter in his court to signify his personal control over his kingdom, even in the midst of unprecedented bureaucratic expansion that seemed to dilute his authority.

Now wait a minute.

A world leader who would lean on humor to signify his authority or humiliate a rival?

Clip:

“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.”

“Because you’d be in jail.”

“Secretary Clinton.”

As you can see, some things never change.

But in the court of King Henry II, Thomas Becket became known as “the Laughing Saint” because he went from being the witty and fun Lord Chancellor in Henry’s court to being the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, in spite of being appointed by Henry, refused to bring the English Church under Henry’s control.

Henry famously blurted out:

“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

To which four knights took up the challenge and killed Becket in his own cathedral in 1170.

St. Thomas Becket was canonized three years later, and in 1174 Henry undertook penance for his role in Becket’s death.

What Does the Church Teach About Humor?

It’s important to remember that while Church Fathers and theologians discussed laughter, I’m not aware of specific magisterial teaching on the subject throughout most of Church history.

Though we do have some low-level teaching in the contemporary Church on this issue.

In Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, he has a whole section on humor and writes:

“Christian joy is usually accompanied by a sense of humour. We see this clearly, for example, in Saint Thomas More, Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Philip Neri.

“Ill humour is no sign of holiness. ‘Remove vexation from your mind’ (Eccl 11:10). We receive so much from the Lord ‘for our enjoyment’ (1 Tim 6:17), that sadness can be a sign of ingratitude.

“We can get so caught up in ourselves that we are unable to recognize God’s gifts.”

St. Philip Neri is a great example of holy humor because he would do things like shave half of his face or dress in silly attire in order to be humble when other people would fawn over his holiness.

This is why it can be okay to have fun depicting the saints.

One of my favorite examples is a surfing Madonna, or Star of the Sea, in the beachside town of Encinitas.

Though one has to be careful about treating sacred things and people in a profane way.

Otherwise, one might commit the sin of sacrilege, since the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

“Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God.”

This is why we, of course, should not idolize all kinds of modern humor.

A lot of it isn’t even really humor, but just offensiveness for its own sake.

But that also doesn’t mean we can’t recognize good gifts of God given to imperfect people.

In 2024, Pope Francis addressed a group of comedians and told them:

“You remind us that homo sapiens is also homo ludens! For playful fun and laughter are central to human life, to express ourselves, to learn, and to give meaning to situations.”

Though he also said:

“Humour does not offend, humiliate, or put people down according to their flaws.”

Humor Can Help Us Evangelize

In fact, one way to evangelize is to help people laugh in the context of the Church and Christianity itself.

We can show them that we aren’t a bunch of dour ideologues who take ourselves too seriously.

You can see this in comedians like John Crist, who poke fun at the absurdities in Christian life through self-deprecating humor.

That can also help point out things we might need to change in Christian life, like in this video about the typical Christian mission-trip leader:

Clip:

“Day four, you guys, is when we really get down to business. We’re going to paint a school.

“Are there skilled painters in that country that could probably do a better job than us? Yes, there are.

“Does this country have high unemployment, and could they probably use the work? Again, also true.

“Was this school painted last week by the mission team that came before us? Again, yes.

“But that’s not important, okay? We’re going to paint the school, and we’re going to get some photos to send back to the church.”

Ultimately, Scripture itself gives us rules to guide laughter.

For example, Sirach says:

“A fool raises his voice in loud laughter, while a wise person smiles quietly.”
—Sirach 21:20

That expresses wisdom in not being a person who engages in obnoxious laughter.

That’s why Ecclesiastes says there is a time, or a season, for everything:

“A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
—Ecclesiastes 3:4

And Genesis 21:5–7 says:

“Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

“Now Sarah said, ‘God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.’

“And she said, ‘Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’”

This is why their child was named Isaac, or in Hebrew Yitzchak, meaning “he who laughs.”

So when God gives us an unexpected trial, it’s okay to cry.

And when he gives us an unexpected blessing, it’s okay to laugh.

Pope Benedict XVI, who wasn’t as jolly as Pope Francis, understood this when he was asked about humor in the life of the Pope.

He said:

“I think it is very important to be able to see the humorous side of life and its joyful dimension and not to take everything too tragically. I would also say it is necessary for my ministry.

“A writer once said that angels can fly because they do not take themselves too seriously. Maybe we could also fly a bit if we did not think we were so important.”

Maybe we could indeed.

Thank you all so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.