"Beautiful Outlaw"

I have always been an avid reader.  My favorite time to read is in the evening, when Im tucked into bed just before falling asleep, or while Im eating lunch at the kitchen table.  I can remember back to jr. high and the summers spent sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of macaroni and cheese and reading Nancy Drew mysteries.  These are most definitely some of my favorite memories.

I recently started the book "Beautiful Outlaw" by John Eldredge.  It's a 2011 Best Seller in the Christian market and just happens to be a book selected for the book club Im a part of.  It was a slow start, partially because I havent read John Eldredge before and I was getting a feel for his style of writing, but two chapters in and I am really enjoying it.  In fact, it has got me thinking more and more about what Jesus must have been like in person, face to face. I have actually begun to read thoughtfully, not just flying through the pages absorbing what info I can, but deliberately slowing down and even walking away from the book to really consider what the author is saying.  This is new to me.  It's unusual.  But Im liking it.

I just finished a chapter titled, "Is Jesus Really Playful?" The word playful threw me off for a bit.  It felt almost wrong to describe Jesus in such a way.  I mean we can never forget the reverence we need to have for Him as our God and our Savior.  But I dove in and gave the author the chance to explain himself.  And what I found was that my eyes were opened to a new way of considering our Lord.  Here is are some excerpts from the chapter that I think you will enjoy:

pg 21-22 "Elton Trueblood conducted a good bit of research in order to write a biblical defense of Jesus' playfulness in his book The Humor Of Christ.  It is a very thorough, scholarly, and dry book.  Which is actually pretty funny--a humorless book about God's sense of humor.  What does it say of us, or of our church culture, that such a book even needs to be written? That we have to go to great lengths to wonder if God laughs? How far have we strayed from his heart, his personality?

Does Jesus have a sense of humor? Well, he created laughter.

And think of the crowd he dined with. These rabble-rousers quickly earned Jesus a reputation as a drunkard and a glutton, and it wasnt because they served water and crackers.  This was a wild group, and surely such a crowd got rolling in laughter from time to time, if only from the joy they were experiencing being with Jesus. Now, surely the creator of these colorful characters didnt sit there frowning, looking pious, Mr. Killjoy, Mr. Im-Above-All-This.  Imagine his own happiness at having these very lost sheep back at his side."

Now I cant speak for the author's other works, or even for the rest of the book.  But this chapter really spoke to me about the fact that God invented laughter.  He made us, and other animals, playful in our nature.  And I have to say when considering this side of Jesus and reading through the Bible verses the author used as examples of Jesus' humor, I have to say I read them anew.  I really enjoyed considering Jesus' actions in the Bible in a new light, without at all changing the truth about who He is.  Ive smiled while  imagining our Lord laughing a hearty laugh along with his friends.  Or using humor to lighten the mood in a tense moment.  I think he has more of a sense of humor than we have allowed him.  Not in a spiteful or mean sense, but in a relational sense.  We forget he was also a man, like us, and that laughter is one of the most wonderful things we experience together.  I like to think the God I love gets a good chuckle from watching me.