One of the most successful series of humorous greetings cards and cartoon books which have been sold in every High Street in recent years have been those featuring Rupert Fawcett's character 'Fred'.
Apart from the wonderful craftsmanship of the drawing, a major reason for their success is that the 'Fred' cartoons recognise the jokes that are already present in human life. In that sense the humour is uncontrived. They make us laugh because we half recognise ourselves, our friends, our society in hyperbole. Fred is married to Penelope and together they parody us and our world.
There is a dreadful danger in dissecting humour - it usually dies in the process! But as Fred reflects people in the present day we can use him to expose how contemporary people need the gospel of Christ. Jesus said: 'I Have come that you may have life in all its fullness' (John 10.10). If we ask the question: 'How does Fred need life?' we will go a long way to seeing how we need the life which the Lord Jesus brings.
