The Bible teaches that “Laughter does good, like a medicine.” (Proverbs 17:22) (Some people think that wording originated with Readers’ Digest, but no, they got it from scripture!) Twenty-five hundred years ago, a Hebrew writer was advising his readers that there is a healing quality to laughter. And, science has since proven the wisdom of those words, advising us that when we laugh our bodies release endorphins (neurotransmitters) that reduce pain, lessen the effects of stress, modulate appetite, release romance hormones, and enhance the immune system. If most of us were offered a magic pill that could accomplish all that, we would have the prescription filled before the ink dried! But, as it turns out, life has offered it to us free of charge. Humor is healing.

My mother taught me that lesson when I was a child. Mom battled seasons of depression in her life. She also had what nowadays we would call “a wicked sense of humor.” She could see the funny side of almost anything, and if a funny thought popped into her head, within seconds it would pop out of her mouth. But Dad and I knew that often the funnier she sounded, the more aggressively she was battling her depression. She used to say it this way: “I laugh to keep from crying.” I suspect one of my mother’s treatment protocols for depression was endorphins.

Beyond the chemical aspects of humor, however, are the philosophical ones – which are just as healing. Years ago a brilliant theologian named Elton Trueblood wrote a book entitled The Humor Of Christ. We rarely think of Jesus in that way, but Trueblood pointed out that in the vernacular of His day and time, many of Jesus’ teachings employed humor (and frequently even the use of puns). One of the many titles attributed to Jesus across the centuries has been “Man of Sorrows,” and there is no denying the depth and reality of sorrow in His life. However, if Trueblood were correct, then even “the Man of Sorrows” employed humor to help maintain His emotional equilibrium in a difficult world. Sometimes in my own life, when I am struggling with deep and desperate issues, I intentionally retreat to brief moments of entirely positive thinking or intentionally humorous thinking as an oasis (to refuel for life’s serious work).

Recently on a subway train, I was standing next to a man wearing a T-shirt that said: “If you can’t laugh at yourself … I’ll do it for you!” I saw that at the end of a fairly tough day. I was tired and also placing too much responsibility on my own shoulders for “fixing” too many things in too many lives. The words on his T-shirt made me laugh out loud, and I immediately felt better. That is because I immediately realized that I had been taking myself way too seriously. The future of the whole world did not, in fact, rest on my shoulders, nor are my shoulders big enough to carry all that. And no one was really asking me to “fix” them, nor did they even want me to. By remembering from time to time to laugh at myself, I am enabled to maintain a reasonable perspective on life – a kind of world-view that inspires rather than exhausts.