Is Comedy Divine?

My article for Imaginative Conservative this week reflects on the need for laughter in the face of the gathering dark.

Let’s get theological. If we’re created in the image of God and we are able to laugh, then does God laugh? Is comedy divine?

I’m convinced of it. Because he sees how all things work together for good, he sees that the whole cosmic drama has a happy ending, and a just ending is the definition of a comedy.

God therefore sees the whole cosmic joke and instead of seeing him only as the sober and awesome God of the Universe, it doesn’t do us any harm to also see him as a King of Comedy–I’m seeing an everlastingly burly Burl Ives, or the good man, John Goodman. I’m seeing the Creator as a chuckling Chesterton or the sweet John Candy. He is Jolly Jehovah, the Lord of Laughter, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, and the Almighty Master of Mirth.

Was Jesus a joker? There’s not much explicit chicanery in the gospels, but one gets the impression that there was within our Lord a spring in the step, a glint in the eye, and a certain joie de vivre.

Go here for the whole article.