What Makes God Laugh?

Psalm 59:8a (ESV)  But you, O Lord, laugh at them;

I’ve always been interested in what makes people laugh, and I began to wonder why God would laugh and what would He laugh at?

What started me thinking was that the late comedian, George Carlin, once gave a simple explanation of how humor works:  When telling a joke, the person is telling a story.  The person listening thinks they are hearing the same story, but at the punch line, they realize they’ve been fooled.  In the context of a joke, this makes them laugh.  Let me give an example:

A professor and a blonde are just leaving LAX on a flight to New York. The professor suggest to the blonde: “This is a long flight. Why don’t we play a game.” The blonde says “Okay. What sort of game.” The Professor says, “I’ll ask you a question, and if you can’t answer it you pay me fifty dollars. Then you can ask me a question. If I can’t answer it, I’ll pay you fifty dollars.”

The blonde thinks for a minute then says “That’s not fair. You’re a professor, and I barely made it out of high school.” The professor thinks then says “Okay. How about this. I’ll ask you a question, and if you can’t answer it you pay me five dollars. Then you can ask me a question, and if I can’t answer it, I’ll still pay you the fifty dollars.”

The blonde agrees. The professor says “Okay, I’ll start. What’s the speed of light?” The blonde thinks for a minute then opens her purse and hands the professor five dollars. The professor says “It’s 186,000 miles per second. Your turn.”

The blonde thinks then says “What’s green, made out of wood, and runs up hills.” The professor is stumped and hands the blonde fifty dollars. She says “Thank you.” The professor then says “Well. What is it?” and she hands him five dollars.

If you haven’t heard the joke before, the surprise ending may have made you, a human, laugh.  But since God can’t be surprised by what we say, He’s omniscient, what can make Him laugh?  Jokes won’t work on God. So, what could make Him laugh or does He laugh at all.

I did some study and found only the one verse – Psalms 59:8 – that says God laughs.  So, what makes Him laugh if He can’t be surprised?  He laughs when humans think they can get the best of Him, can win against Him and His people.

The full context of the verse I gave above is David speaking to God of his enemies.  David realizes God just laughs as their puny attempts to beat His people when they are doing God’s work.  Then I thought of Saul (soon to become Paul) on the road to Damascas:

Acts 9:1-5 (ESV)  But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ² and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³ Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. ⁴ And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” ⁵ And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

Saul was persecuting the church.  God the Son took this personally and asked Saul why he was persecuting Him.  This tells us God considers an attack on the church as the same as attacking Him.

Why is this important?

When we feel the world closing in on us, when it seems our enemies are getting the best of us, we should remember if we are right with God, He laughs at our enemies because He sees these attacks as attacks against the all-powerful Being and not us. 

God is omnipotent which means He can do anything He wants to do.  For finite man to come against the infinitely powerful Being who spoke and all of creation came into existence is funny to Him.  I think it’s pretty funny myself.

So, maybe we should laugh at the trials we face, the enemies who seek to damage and destroy what God has built.  Jesus sits on His throne at these times and says “Now that’s funny.”