My favourite joke - and why it doesn't really work

This is my favourite joke. I am going to tell you why it isn't funny and what is wrong with it. I like this joke because there was a split second before I worked it out that I thought it was really funny.

So here goes;

"A middle aged woman had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. While on the operating table, she had a near death experience. Seeing God, she asked Him if this was "it". God said, "No, I am sending you back. You have another 40 years, 2 months and 8 days to live."

Upon recovery, the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a facelift, liposuction, breast augmentation, and a tummy tuck. She even had her hairdresser come to the hospital to change her hair colour before she was released to go home. She figured that since she had such a long life ahead of her, she had better make the most of it.

After all the operations, she left the hospital and while crossing the street she was hit by an ambulance and was immediately killed. Coming face to face with God, the woman demanded, "I thought you said I had another forty years left to live. What happened?"

God replied: "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you." 

What's right with this joke? The message is that God loves you for who you are and you do not need to change. So what's wrong with this joke?

1. There is NO WAY that God would not recognise you. I can do no better than quote Psalm 139 which sums up God's intimate knowledge of each of us. (Scroll down to find the whole of the psalm).


2. The second thing that is wrong with this joke is the implausibility of the woman's reaction. She MET God. Let me say that again - She MET God! She gained the proof that doubting Thomas' such as myself crave. She did not need to believe or have faith - she KNEW God and he knew her. She spoke to him and he gave her another 40 years of life.

In return, when she woke up did she say to the doctors and nurses "Praise the Lord!"? No, instead we are faced with a completely prosaic response, "Get my hairstylist on the phone".

Perhaps this isn't as surprising as it may seem. After all, the Disciples knew Jesus and yet despite hanging around with him, seeing him calm the storm, heal people, speak with authority, cast out demons etc they still didn't get it. Time after time Jesus had patiently to re-explain who he was and why he was here on earth.

3. The third thing that is profoundly wrong with this - is that to quote Psalm 139 - Knowing God - would she not know that she was "fearfully and wonderfully made"? and therefore have no need of surgery.

4.This joke shows a profound misunderstanding of who God is and what he wants to do for each one of us in our lives. 

There is a chasm between the God that Christians know and the God portrayed here. So maybe it is a good joke after all - seeking to hold a mirror up to each of us - and showing up the casual, cavalier attitude of so many of us towards God.

As someone recently said to me "You can live without God but you can't die without him".


Psalm 139 (New International Version)

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

 ¹ You have searched me, LORD,

   and you know me.

² You know when I sit and when I rise;

   you perceive my thoughts from afar.

³ You discern my going out and my lying down;

   you are familiar with all my ways.

⁴ Before a word is on my tongue

   you, LORD, know it completely.

⁵ You hem me in behind and before,

   and you lay your hand upon me.

⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

   too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?

   Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

   if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,

   your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

   and the light become night around me,”

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;

   the night will shine like the day,

   for darkness is as light to you.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;

   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

   your works are wonderful,

   I know that full well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you

   when I was made in the secret place,

   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;

   all the days ordained for me were written in your book

   before one of them came to be.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!

   How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸ Were I to count them,

   they would outnumber the grains of sand—

   when I awake, I am still with you.

 ¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!

   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!

²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;

   your adversaries misuse your name.

²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,

   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?

²² I have nothing but hatred for them;

   I count them my enemies.

²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;

   test me and know my anxious thoughts.

²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,

   and lead me in the way everlasting.

Atheism - the easy option?...for now anyway

Is atheism the easy option? With atheism I can do what I like in this life and then there is nothing.....except that IF I get it wrong then according to the Christians I will then spend my eternity in hell.

Whereas, with christianity I have to choose to surrender to Jesus (see Salvation Prayer blog) and then live by the rules of the bible (see Ten Commandments blog) and then hope I go to heaven but potentially, given the life I have led so far...i.e have two children out of wedlock - go to hell.......for eternity. That's the interesting thing - all the good stuff we do doesn't seem to count for anything if you don't surrender. You could be an aid worker in Africa, living in poverty and devoting your entire life to helping others and that would not be enough because you have not surrendered your life to Jesus. You can spend your life helping others and being the kindest person in the world but if you don't believe you will be damned to hell for eternity.

Scary stuff eh? But would it be wrong, morally weak, to believe - not because of a positive belief in Jesus but in a fear of hell?

I used to look at christians and covet what they had -

1. The moral certainty
2. Quite often - the loving husband
3. The beatific smile
4. You've heard of "smug marrieds" (Bridget Jones) - well the glow on a Christian's face (not all - but especially the evangelical ones) makes the married friends of Miss Jones look as though they are in mourning.

Now, I just don't know. To be fair - I don't think I've ever heard a Christian tell me theirs was the easy option - just the only option.

I've heard some atheists speak of Christians as being weak in their need to believe in something, but actually the weak position seems to be atheism. "Nothing" is much easier to believe in than "eternity".......potentially in hell.

Daniel Everett was a missionary. His book "Don't sleep, there are snakes" is an autobiography of his journey to atheism. He went to the Amazon to convert a tribe to Jesus and they ended up converting him to atheism. The question that has been perplexing me is - if he got it wrong, the fact that he showed the tribe the option of Jesus - has he now damned them to hell because they have rejected Jesus? If he had not visited them and they were not aware of their options then would a kind and compassionate God really send them to eternity in hell when they had not had the opportunity to know Jesus?

Last week my friend Jane offered for me to give my life to Jesus. She said "You can do it right now". I replied in increasingly desperate tones, "I can't, I can't". I could not begin to verbalise why as it has taken time to process my reaction.

I am fascinated when I hear of people who have no or little knowledge of the bible suddenly falling down and "giving their lives to Jesus". How can they do that? Why could I not do that?

I want to continue questioning and exploring and I fear that if, or once, I make that declaration it is game over - I must live by the rules of the bible (open to interpretation) and no longer question.

A huge part of me feels that when and only when I can argue logically and cogently with an atheist and potentially win will I be able to "surrender" but is that my ego getting in the way? and what a risk to take? Why put my eternal future in the hands of an atheist? Surely the logical answer is that the atheist can make their own journey.

All I know is that currently I enjoy going to church but feel I am on borrowed time. I feel I have temporary membership of a club and the Manager at some point soon is going to say "You either pay your subscription, abide by the rules of the club and have access to all the rooms in the club....or you leave. Your 6 month trial membership is up".

You know there is one thing that winds me up - (I am about to be judgmental and not christian at all!). The same friends who talk of me becoming a "God botherer", pity me, or try to join Dawkins on his particular hillock of high ground are the same people who can be found searching for peace, contentment, an answer to their worries or even "enlightenment" through yoga and/or meditation. They are the same people who do "reiki" or "horoscopes" or visit clairvoyants. They are the same people who believe in "The Secret" or "Cosmic Ordering". They are the same people who believe in luck and believe in ghosts. Do any of them see the contradiction in their position? They are prepared to believe a random set of beliefs and practices to be found on the shelves of New Age bookstores but not a word of Jesus.

They are saying they believe in a spirit world but when you talk about the spirit world referring to Jesus they go all atheist on you.

Leap of Faith

Desmond Tutu described the bible as a "library of books" and the point he was making was that we should read different parts in different ways. Some take the whole bible literally, for example, the people who have set up the creation museum in Kentucky www.creationmuseum.org. Others choose to follow some bits and not others. When I was speaking about the bible with my friend Ian the other day he said "Yes but it is just a collection of stories". Over the past year I have been quite surprised at the historical accuracy of certain parts as put forward by historians as opposed to theologians.

Nicky Gumbel (Holy Trinity Brompton) poses this question - If Jesus was not the son of God - who was he? Either he was a lier or a fantasist. Nicky doesn't give any further options. I have turned to historians to assist me in trying to find an answer."The Unauthorised Version - Truth and Fiction in the Bible" has been a really useful resource. Its author Robin Lane Fox is an English historian, currently a Fellow of New College, Oxford and University of Oxford Reader in Ancient History.

Another incredibly useful book has been "A history of Christianity, the first three thousand years" by Diarmaid MacCulloch, who is Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford (since 1997) and Fellow (formerly Senior Tutor) of St Cross College, Oxford (since 1995). This has also been made into a successful BBC series which can be purchased on DVD.

Despite all this erudite reading I have to ask myself whether I am any further down the path of either atheism or theism. As a christian gentlemen said to me, clearly exasperated by my constant questioning - "It's called a LEAP OF FAITH for a reason!"

So I took a change of tack and decided to explore literature by christians that I admire - hence reading Desmond Tutu's biography. His brand of christianity is, if I believed, where I would sit most comfortably.