God has a sense of humor. Me? Well...

When you take the time to get to know God, you get to know His sense of humor.  I have felt it in my own life, and have seen it in His Word.  And today, I would like to share a slightly irreverent (and hopefully not blasphemous) take on ten off the top of my head funny bits in the Bible.  I hope everyone in Heaven and on earth at least gets a smile out of this.


10- This is how Wile E Coyote got started (2 Samuel 11)

I had a bit of trepidation doing this one, seeing's as it didn't play out very well in the end, as both a warrior and a baby lost their lives.  But if you look at it from a secular standpoint, David came up with a string of bad ideas in the whole Bathsheba "affair".  First, he spots her taking a bath on the roof, which I am assured was 'common practice' of the day.  Makes me think, did all the day's golddiggers take baths where the king might spot them?  Might explain some of Solomon's 300 wives and 700 concubines.  Long story short, she gets pregnant and David has a royal problem.  So he brings the hubby Uriah back from the war for a 'sitrep', then tells him to go relax at home (where Bathsheba no doubt waits by the 'indoor bathtub').  And David has a gift sent after him, which the KJV for some arcane reason translates into ' a mess of meat'.  But Uriah refuses to go in- he clings to his honor and misses anvil #1.  So night #2, David gets Uriah drunk, because we all know how men are after a few drinks (see "Lot and his daughters" in Genesis 19), but again Uriah refuses to eat the plate of seed under the big rock.  So finally, David sends him back to the war with a "kill me" sign taped to his back.  But as if the Road Runner's ghost came up behind him, Nathan the prophet tells a story that gets David to let the cat out of the bag himself.  No word on whether David went, "D'oh!" went Nathan said, Gotcha!"


9- "You can't make this stuff up, Festus" (Acts 26)

So here's Paul before an audience of Procurator Porcius Festus and Tetrarch Herod Agrippa, after sitting in a cell for 2 years because the last guy (Felix, who with Festus are the only 2 guys in the Bible whose names start with an 'F', ironically enough for the grade they're gonna get) didn't want to touch someone else's religious hot-button issue.  Paul of course relates his "origin story"- how he went from persecutor to evangelist, including the miraculous 'kick against the goads' lightshow.  Now Agrippa was from the 'hood, so he knew a lot of the story, and what he didn't fascinated him.  Festus, however, just got off the bus from Rome, where gods mostly interact with men before they get the promotion from emperor, so he holds his tongue until Paul hits the part about a God who lets Himself get crucified so he could rise from the dead, and then stands up and shouts, "PAUL!  You have lost your fricking mind!  You need to lay off the books and come back to earth before the nice boys in the white shirts take you to the padded room!"

Agrippa, though, sang a verse of "Almost Persuaded", and vouched that Paul was indeed fully functional.  After which, they both said, "Thank Zeus he appealed to Caesar and ain't our problem anymore."


8- " Aw, Mom..." (John 2)

So Mary and Jesus are in charge of this wedding reception (guessing it's one of his half-sisters), and SOMEbody either short-changed the wine vendor or invited the boozers in each family, because the adult refreshments ran out a bit early.  So Mary goes to Jesus with this, "Can't you do something about this?" look.  Jesus replied, "Woman, my time has not yet come."  But Mary, much like the traditional Jewish mom responding to "Ma, I'm stuffed" with another scoop of kugel, merely looks at the bartender and says, "Do whatever He tells you."  Probably with a shove on Jesus's shoulders, Mary then leaves the stage for her Son to do His first 'stand-up'.  After the miraculous transformation from water to wine, the chief steward is called and one sip later tells the bridegroom, "Nice job, saving the best for last."  I can't help seeing the steward as Larry from Bewitched...

"You son of a gun!"

7- "A cow, am I???" (Judges 14)

Samson, for all his God-given might, had bad taste in women, and this story is no different.  He sees a Philistine chick and asks Mom and Dad to set them up (again, how they did things back then).  Along the way, they get jumped by a lion, and Samson grabs his jaws and rips him in two.  Later, they come back through and Samson notices the bees have built a honeycomb in its skull (definitely not how they did things back then).  So when they kicked off the seven day party called the marriage feast, the Philistines assigned him 30 'companions' (read "guards") to keep him out of trouble- which of course Samson was more than willing to get into.  So he gave them a 'riddle' to figure out, and if they solved it before the consummation of things, Samson would get them all new suits.  His riddle: "Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet." (And thank you to the ESV for getting it to rhyme!)

The reference was to the lion, something that nobody else knew about (Mom and Pop hadn't seen the honeycomb).  So with time running out, the "companions" conned the bride to be into smoozing for the answer, something that ALWAYS worked with our hero.  And after a couple of days of "no huggie, no kissie", Samson let her in on it, she told them, and they answered the riddle.  His reply was classic:  "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle."

Thus he got in the side shot on them, and the next verse tells us the Spirit gave him the best plan to pay off the bet- he just went to the next town, killed 30 OTHER Philistines, and gave the 'companions' their hand-me-downs.

Needless to say, the rest of the party was "rained out."

6- What to give 3 guys that have everything? Tents  (Matthew 17)

If Jesus ever had a facepalm moment, this had to be it.  He takes His 3 best students up on a mountain away from everyone, and opens up His True Glory to them.  While there, He has a quick word or two with the biggest stars of the Biblical galaxy that weren't divine- Moses and Elijah.  This is a once in forever moment, and frankly, I'd like to say I would have had a million questions for the duo... but probably would have put my camera on "reduce glare" mode and asked for autographs.

The 2,000 years ago equivalent, apparently, was slapping together a trio of tents, so they could break out the folding chairs and have a real sit down.  In the midst of Peter trying to come up with this completely unnecessary plan, God gets on the loudspeaker and says, "Hey, schlemiel!  This is My Beloved Son.  LISTEN TO HIM!"  Needless to say, they hit the ground and held on for dear life.

After Moses and Elijah said their goodbyes, Jesus came over and said, "You can get up now.  And, er, forget the tents."

So this whole thing ended up a lot bigger than I thought it would.  Tune in next week, if I haven't been obliterated by then, for the second half of this post.  BTW, I'm going to go ahead and write part two now, so if you hear about "Lightning strikes Ft Wayne man," you might want to skip it when it comes up....