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Now, God winks are those almost statistically impossible but simultaneously occurring events that immediately grab your attention as being more than coincidental. One feels instantly that there is a message from a higher power contained in the concurrence that demands you to sit up and heed the communication.

It was in the week that our minister, Pastor Brad (McDowell), delivered a sermon on the prophet Jonah, but introduced the message with a preface that the prophet is better understood if we listen as if Jonah was a stand-up comedian as opposed to a fire-and-brimstone preacher. Think about the story’s elements. Jonah did everything opposite of what God wanted him to do. Instead of going to Nineveh, it was as if Jonah went up to the travel agency and said, “I want a ticket to anywhere but Nineveh!” When he at last does as God directed, he is successful, but instead of celebrating the Lord’s success, the prophet pouts. And, of course, his storytelling talent really grabs anyone’s attention with the three days in the belly of a large fish angle.

There are more portions of the narrative that exemplify that Jonah’s approach at sharing God’s message was through humor, but I can testify that after the sermon, I understood Jonah better than ever before. If that is the case, it may well be that Jonah was the first in line of a long list of spiritually insightful messengers from God who employed a comedic approach.

The other concurring event was that I discovered shortly afterward that on today’s date of Dec. 26 in the year 1169, Bishop Eudes de Sully of Paris attempted to ban the celebration of the Feast of Fools. (Eventually it was prohibited, but in 1431.) The Feast of Fools was a holiday in which roles of culture for one day were reversed for fun. Low-ranking clergy became bishops, paupers pretended to be gentry, and social standing in general was satirized. Bishop de Sully interpreted all of this as a pagan celebration threatening a social revolution with a reversal of power.

If you have ever seen the opening scene of 1939’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring Charles Laughton, you have a capsule of the affair. Maybe even better, Disney’s 1996 animated version has a song titled “Topsy Turvy” that words it even better: “Now’s the time to laugh until our sides are sore, Now’s the time we crown our King of Fools! So make a face that’s horrible and frightening, make a face as gruesome as a gargoyle’s wing, for the face that is the ugliest will be the King of Fools!”

The Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood wrote about the need for wit in his “The Humor of Christ” (1975); Harvey Cox did the same with “Feast of Fools; a Theological Essay of Festivity and Fantasy” (1969), as did Erasmus of Rotterdam about 1500 AD with “In Praise of Folly.” A few readers may even remember the stand-up comedian Grady Nutt, who was able to share the gospel on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show” through his humorous perspective.

Maybe the prophet Jonah was a man ahead of his time. Just as Jesus made humor of the religiosity in His day (A “plank of wood” in one’s eye or a Pharisee thanking God for himself to be so humbly religious can only be interpreted as wry sarcasm!), old Jonah knew that even the most spiritually adept believer has a genuine need for a bit of R and R from time to time.

Even the writer of the book of Proverbs, one of the most sober, right-brained authors in the Bible, added a bit of wit from time to time. Consider the following examples that have been updated in wording with a rather heavy dosage of license:

“A gold ring in a pig’s nose is a gorgeous woman with no sense.” (11:22)

“Even a fool looks smart when he keeps his mouth shut.” (15:17)

“A man is better off living in the corner of the attic than in a house with a cranky woman.” (21:9)

“A horse needs a whip, a donkey needs a bridle, but a jackass needs a kick in the butt.” (26:3)