Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. In today's episode, we're asking the question, can laughter fix your marriage? This is prompted by a really interesting article I read in the Atlantic this week about the fact that comedians, as celebrities go, tend to stay married longer than any other category.

Some of the most famous comedians you know have been married for two, three decades. And while that might sound pretty normal to normal people, in the world of celebrity where marriages can sometimes last months, not years, it's a little bit of an outlier. So what the author of the article did was look at the commonalities that might give reasons why comedians tend to stay married. And I thought these were really interesting observations. One of the things that they said is that comedians, by their very nature, are observant.

They pay attention to people, to mannerisms, to the way people feel, to the things that they do. They are naturally curious about people. It take that into marriage, and what that means is that the person with whom they're married always feels understood. That their spouse has actually spent a lot of time paying attention to them, noticing what they say, how they feel, what they're doing, what they're not doing. That's because curiosity and and valuing another person enough to pay attention is the kind of skeleton of a healthy relationship.

It leads to intimacy, which is, of course, being fully known and fully loved. Comedians are great about understanding you, which means when they tell you they love you, they love the real you. Also, laughter is pretty common in a marriage with a comedian, you might imagine, but it's also indicative of intimacy because sometimes in marriage, you come up against someone's idiosyncrasies. The they're they're the things that make them peculiar, different from everybody else. For comedians, those things tend to elicit joy.

They elicit the kind of observations that might have them in their stand up routine saying, hey. What's the deal with this? What comedians in the article consistently said is that they found these idiosyncrasies in their spouse as a reason to appreciate them all the more, as reason to draw near to them rather than push them away. Humor was a way of saying, I know the real you, and I think you're great even if you're a little weird. Comedians also talked about recognizing that, they aren't the movie star hunks or, heroines.

And so they were looking for relationships that were actually built on conversation, on truly being known and truly being loved and not just on physical appearance. There's a lot here to unpack. But let me just point out to you what these comedians are hitting on in their own marriages that I have experienced in mind that I think the Bible will affirm to us. The the first is that the true goal of marriage is what I'll call naked and unashamed love. This comes from Genesis where the Bible says that Adam and Eve were naked and without shame.

Marriage is meant to be a relationship where we are known completely. There's none of the masks or the the ways we hide ourselves out in the larger world. We are able to be exposed, literally and figuratively to someone and to be loved. That's the kind of intimate love that God has enjoyed with himself for all of eternity. It's the kind of love we were meant to have in the garden with God himself.

Marriage is a template of that. It it's a shadow of that. It is meant to be a place of intimacy. And what the comedians are hitting on is that idea. Of course, to have that kind of intimacy means that we have to believe being fully known and fully loved is possible, which of course is what we get from the gospel.

If I can go to Jesus with my sin and be forgiven and be loved and be accepted, then maybe it's possible for me to go to another person. But that kind of exchange requires humility. That's what Paul's talking about in Philippians two that we think of others as more important than ourselves, that we're in tune with our own sinfulness, our own idiosyncrasies, and the way God loves us in spite of those things. And even through those things, it's the receiving of that love that allows us to extend it to each other. Marriage is an intimacy incubator.

And what these comedians are saying is that that's what they're aiming at. That's what they're trying to do. And let me just challenge you with this. I think the truth is many of us are middle aged and married. And if we're honest, what led us to get married in our twenties or thirties was a desire for children, a desire for physical connection, things that now maybe don't ring as true or or come off as important.

But that's not that does not mean your marriage is broken. It means you settled in the beginning for too small of you. These comedians and the bible are calling us to a bigger view of marriage, a marriage where you are sharing your heart, a marriage where you are curious about the heart of your spouse, and you are committed to receiving and giving love no matter what is there. And occasionally, even laughing at what you find. Marriage isn't easy, but it is worth it.

And it is possible at least according to comedians and God. Hey thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!