Did Jesus have a sense of humor?

In a previous post, I suggested that a joke can be deemed  “too late” (as opposed to “too soon”) if a lot of time has passed since the event being joked about. A more common reason that a joke can be seem irrelevant is when the audience doesn’t understand the context of the joke – as is the case when the audience and the joke teller have different backgrounds.

As an example, check out this clip from the Colbert Report, which discuss Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life.  The book’s author, Reverend James Martin, presents examples of humor in the Bible and discusses our difficulties understanding it. Evidently, Jesus was a pretty funny guy.