photo #9301615

Sometimes a meme is just plain cute, and this one made us smile.Look at the faces in this cartoon. The shock, the gasps, the one guy stroking his beard trying to work it all out. And there sits Jesus, calm as can be, delivering the best comeback in history."No way.""Yahweh."It is a play on words, and a clever one. But here is the fun part. The joke is smarter than it looks.Yahweh is the personal name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. When Moses asked who was sending him, God answered, "I AM WHO I AM."So when the meme has Jesus answer "Yahweh," it is not just a pun. It is exactly the claim Jesus actually made.In John 8:58, Jesus told the crowd, "Before Abraham was, I am." Everyone listening knew precisely what He meant. He was taking the divine name for Himself. The reaction in the Gospel is about the same as the faces in this cartoon, only with stones involved.That is what makes this little drawing work. It takes one of the most staggering claims ever spoken and delivers it with a grin. The people around Him in the picture are stunned, confused, amazed. Two thousand years later, people still are.Our Founders understood that faith and good humor belong together in a free country. A culture that can laugh while talking about the deepest questions is a healthy one. A culture that cannot is in trouble.So no, this is not deep theology homework. It is a smile with some truth tucked inside, and we think that is worth sharing on a summer weekend.Pass it along to somebody who needs a laugh today.