There was a time when Jesus cried. We know that because the Bible plainly tells us so. He stood at the graveside of Lazaurus, and even though he was about to raise his dear friend from the dead, Jesus was still overwhelmed with grief … and he wept!

But did he ever laugh? The scriptures do not specifically mention such an occasion. In fact, back in the 11th century, the influential church leader John of Chrysostom insisted that the serious nature of Jesus’ ministry actually prevented him from “engaging in moments of humor or frivolity.” And the Second Council of Constance in 1418 took that stance one step further. They declared “any minister or monk who spoke jocular words that might provoke a congregation to laughter would be subject to eternal damnation.”

Ouch! If that’s true, I’m in big trouble.

Frankly, I don’t think John of Chrysostom or the Council of Constance could have been more wrong. I believe that the Bible is absolutely filled with humor. Take the story of Abraham and Sarah, for example. They are both getting on in years when an angel informs them that they had better check out whether Medicare has a maternity plan, because they are about to have a baby.

According to one account, Abraham laughed so hard he literally fell on his face. In another version, it was Sarah who giggled herself silly. But, of course, it is God who has the last laugh. He tells them that, when the child is born, they are to name him Isaac, which is the Hebrew word for “laughter.” So I guess you could say that God not only tolerated their laughter but also blessed it, and in a sense, joined in it with them, which makes it a very special kind of laughter indeed—God and humankind laughing together, sharing a glorious joke in which all of them are involved.

Or consider some of the analogies that Jesus used. Can’t you imagine him laughing out loud when he spoke of a person with a two-by-four in his eye trying to remove a speck of sawdust from his neighbor’s eye? Can’t you see a wry smile on his face when he described how the Pharisees and scribes “strain out a gnat, but swallow a whole camel”?

Garrison Keillor, of “Prairie Home Companion” fame, insists that Jesus had a wonderful sense of humor. “He gave his followers a satiric sense of the world, and allowed us to laugh at our own foibles and pretensions, thus transforming the pain involved in ordinary life into a state of gracious joy.” I couldn’t agree more. After all, what parent doesn’t love to hear their children laugh? I believe that God not only encourages laughter, but also invites it. As St. Francis of Assisi once said: “Leave sadness to the devil. The devil has reason to be sad!”