The Chapel - Rediscovering God Changes Everything.

To specifically talk about Jesus’ laughter is not possible straight from Scripture – there are no verses that refer to Jesus laughing, though He does talk about the laughter to come in God’s Kingdom (Luke 6:21-23). However, there is plenty of evidence that Jesus was not the somber and detached person we too often envision. There were two groups of people, both very difficult to mislead, who were drawn unexpectedly to this “religious leader”:

1. Children (Matthew 21:15-16; Luke 18:15-16)

2. Rebels (Mark 2:15-17; Luke 15:1)

The fact that these groups were attracted to Jesus speaks volumes about His authenticity and liveliness. If He had been a sullen, stern man - surely He would have frightened children and evoked the usual animosity from rebels. Yet Jesus was so full of life that those around Him could not help but wish to get closer to Him! One of my favorite drawings of Jesus is a depiction of Him laughing with great joy. It’s a contagious laugh – one that resets your perspective and reminds you not to take life quite so seriously.

There is an important factor to consider when we think about Jesus and His emotions. It is critical that we understand the traditional style of writing in the time of Jesus. The biographies that were written in ancient cultures did not emphasize the emotions of people in the same way we do today. In our modern world, we elaborate on the emotions of our characters while in the time of Christ, emotions were only occasionally referenced. If we are to understand the rich emotional life of Jesus, we can’t expect to be told about it in great detail. Once we shift this cultural expectation of ours, we will come to recognize just how much the Gospels do show us about the emotions of Christ!

The Gospels reveal many of the emotions of Jesus: anger (John 2:15-17), sadness (Matthew 26:38; John 11:33-35), gratitude (John 11:41), troubled (John 12:27), fear (Mark 14:32-39), joy (John 15:11), delight (Luke 10:21), hurt (Luke 22:48). As sinful men and women, we will struggle to imagine what His perfect emotions must be like. At times, we wrongly assume that Jesus is either divorced from emotion or that He is swayed by His emotions as we are. We must remember that Christ experienced His emotions fully – with none of our sinful patterns of avoidance or deflection. He felt the pain of Peter’s betrayal in full and yet loved him deeply enough to forgive and restore him. He felt the fear of the Cross to an extent we cannot understand yet boldly walked straight for it. He did not disregard either pain or joy nor was He dictated by His emotions. We have so much to learn from our Lord.

The way that each of us handles our emotions is a critical part of our growth in Christ. As we surrender our life to Jesus, we become more like Him. He teaches us that God made us with emotions (this is part of being made in God’s image). Like Jesus, we are meant to feel the ups and downs of life, but our faith in God means we are rooted in truth and not dictated by our present feelings.