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Speaker: ‘Jesus Enjoyed Laughter’

Christian speaker-songwriter John Bell
Photo by Jim Bishop

By Tom Mitchell, Daily News-Record

Christian speaker-songwriter John Bell believes that to brand Jesus as humorless is to deny part of his humanity. Bell, who is from Glasgow, Scotland, is a featured speaker at the annual Spiritual Life Week at Eastern Mennonite University.

In John Bell’s eyes, Jesus not only wept, he laughed.

"Pictures of Jesus laughing are hard to find," said Bell, a featured speaker at the annual Spiritual Life Week at Eastern Mennonite University this week. "Some conservative Christians consider the idea of Jesus laughing to be blasphemous, but Jesus enjoyed laughter."

Bell’s talk in Lehman Auditorium was one of several sessions that the Christian speaker-songwriter from Glasgow, Scotland, is holding as part of his weeklong program titled "Engaging Jesus."

Bell, whose themes on Jesus target worship, prayer, service and simplicity, was scheduled to speak today at 9:30 a.m. at Eastern Mennonite Seminary’s Martin Chapel on "Jesus and Women."

Tonight, from 8-9:30 at the university’s Common Grounds Coffeehouse, Bell will cover a topic called "If you could ask Jesus a question, what would it be?"

Bell, 56, told an audience of mostly students that Christians too long have painted personal portraits of Christ as exclusively serious. Such conceptions, Bell says, detract from Jesus’ wholeness.

"We need to recapture the humanity of Jesus," Bell said.

Bookend Beliefs

Many believers, Bell said, excessively focus on Christ’s birth and death. "We need to draw more attention to what happened between the cradle and the grave. You can’t understand Jesus unless you understand his life."

That life, Bell says, likely included some amusing moments. As proof of Jesus’ lighter side, Bell cited biblical New Testament verse where humor surfaces from such unlikely issues as a paralytic’s healing and the paying of taxes.

With no photography, and only interpretive art from which to see Jesus, Bell suspects that later scholars failed to fathom scriptural mirth. Concepts of comedy, Bell said, vary with each passing culture.

"Laughter is an incredibly fleeting thing to capture," Bell said, adding that, linguistically, humor "does not always translate."

Bell’s message reached more than one listener. Lindsey Smith, 19, an EMU freshman from Rio, W.Va., said that Bell’s address empowered her view of Christ’s happier side.

"My home pastor gave a sermon about Jesus and humor," said Smith, an education major. "God made us like him, and we have a sense of humor, so it makes sense that he does, too."

Said Nathan Bontrager, 21, a junior and music education major from Akron, Pa.: "I never heard someone express that side of Jesus so well. It gave me a different insight. Besides, I don’t like the idea of a stoic savior."

— article by: Tom Mitchell, Daily News-Record; posted January 12, 2006