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.
Outlook on life
First, we can ask about Fred and Penelope's philosophy - how do they view the world? Theirs is that of the average British person of today. It is materialistic (with a bit of sex thrown in, which is not always savoury). In a classic cartoon Fred beholds Penelope laden with shopping bags, parcels, etc., wearing a T-shirt with the legend 'Born to shop' emblazoned across the chest. The caption reads: ' Penelope had found her vocation'. For consumer Britain, shopping is now our national hobby. Retail therapy rules. The only things that matter are the things you can buy.
Religion is just an irrelevant mysterious nonsense. In one cartoon Penelope looks perplexed as Fred enters the front door ridiculously dressed in mitre and archbishop's robes and attended by a choir boy. The motto reads: 'Fred finally got lucky job down at the job centre.'
But if you looked into the hearts of Fred and Penelope there is a kind of religion there. One surrealist sketch has them worshipping together at the shrine of the 'holy cup-cake'. They idolise the personal peace, security and comfort, symbolised by the homely cup-cake. 'Comfiness' is their god. Yet, of course, so many of the snapshots of Fred's life are full of disappointment and wry stoicism, for consumerism and materialism can never satisfy the soul. Fred and Penelope have been duped by our society into thinking there is no God, or if he is there he is irrelevant to everyday life. Jesus came to bring life in all its fullness, and that means knowing God. We were made to know the Lord and that is why Fred and Penelope's comfy, cosy little world is so disappointing, frustrating and laughable.
Mindset
40 or 50 years ago, the existentialist playwrights introduced us to the theatre of the absurd. Without God the world begins not to make sense any more. Franz Kafka's novels, so redolent of the way the modern world feels to so many people, teeter on the brink of the total breakdown of cause and effect. We are a confused generation. Science has not provided the promised solutions. In some ways it has just exaggerated the problems. The world of Fred and Penelope is similarly absurd.
Fred stands to open the front door as a scaly dinosaur trundles in and he just sighs: 'No peace for the wicked' as if it is an everyday occurrence. A world without God is an alien world. It is a world where morality collapses into mere matters of opinion. It is a world where irrationality often takes over and leads to a reversal of priorities. The important becomes trivial and the trivial becomes important. Fred staggers to catch a falling meteorite in order to save the picnic sausage rolls. Fred takes refuge from a hectic day as he slowly pores over his cornflake collection, kept like stamp albums going back to 1960. Without God the world tends to the absurd. C.S. Lewis said: 'I believe in God as I believe in the sun, not only be-cause I can see it, but by it I can see everything else.' Jesus came to restore sense and purpose to living. He came to give perspective to our world. He came to give us life.
Human nature
Fred and Penelope have a couple around for tea. The four people stare at the two cakes left on the teaplate. The caption declares: 'So far as the cream horns were concerned, it was going to be every man for himself.' There is that inherent selfishness in human beings. Fred's friend Pip gazes despondently over the chess board. Fred is dancing around the room poking his tongue out and waggling his fingers from his ears. Beneath the scene is written: 'Fred found winning at chess immensely gratifying'. There is that sinful delight in each one of us of being able to humiliate and sneer at others.
And the pride of the human ego is such that in our senseless world of upside-down values, we are prepared to pick fights with people over the most trivial matters. Fred stands cowering flat against the wall of the room in which he is hiding as Penelope bursts in looking powerful and grim. With splendid understatement the caption tells us: 'Fred still owed Penelope 20p'. (What was the last argument over in your household? Was it really something important?)
Here the 'Fred' cartoons, either consciously or unconsciously, are scratching the surface of the problem of human sin. The human heart is self-centred, hard, rebellious and proud. We write it off as just being 'human nature'. And there is the crux of our problem. Sin is natural to us. We can even be humorous about it.
It is sin which cuts us off from God and exposes us justly to his wrath, for sin is not a matter of cartoons. It is a matter of hatred, jealousy and selfishness in the real world. Financial corruption, divorce courts and Rwanda are not the creation of Hanna-Barbera. Unbelief, theft and lying are not Walt Disney productions. Jesus stepped into the real world and died on a real cross, because sin is real. He came to bring forgiveness of sin, reconciliation to a holy God and the power of the Holy Spirit to change us. He came to bring life
Human vulnerability
The Bible tells us that we are not only the agents of sin, but the victims of sin too. As well as sinning, we have been sinned against, and hence the world is full of hurt and lonely people. Like a little child Fred sits on Penelope's lap on the settee. With his arms around her neck he snuggles into his wife as if she were his mother. Away from God we are Fatherless in a painful, hostile world. We long for love to comfort us in our pain.
In our vulnerability we play little games with ourselves to boost our egos. Fred stands beside a table-tennis table. He has an extending calliper in each hand, so that he can hold both table-tennis bats at the same time and knock the ball from end to end. Beneath we read: 'Fred made sure he never lost at ping-pong'. We, too, arrange things so as to minimise the losing and hurting in life.
Again, we aspire to be what we can never be and comfort ourselves in our lack of achievement. Homely Penelope, with feet up on the sofa, watches the Jane Fonda aerobics video surrounded by packets of crisps and biscuits. Comfort eating when you cannot manage to be fit and slim says it all.
That is our society. We all crave the affirmation of being someone special, yet we are not special as far as society is concerned. Jesus came to bring life. He came to bring the special love of God. He came as the Good Shepherd for lost, hurting and vulnerable sheep.
Human mortality
Without God we are a society which does not know what to say in the face of tragedy.
I can remember visiting an older member of our congregation in hospital, and not being able to stop myself overhearing a young woman at the bedside of her distraught elderly mother in a nearby bed. The mother was obviously seriously ill and had had to undergo most difficult and intimate examination by the doctors. 'I have never been so embarrassed in all my life', sobbed the old lady. Unable to think of what to say, her daughter blurted out: 'Oh, I'm sure you have, Mum'! As a godless nation we have no hope in the face of tragedy and death. All we can do is make inane comments with a stupifyingly inappropriate cheerfulness. Fred is visiting a friend in hospital. There sits the friend, his bed surrounded by fruit and flowers, but he has no head. Fred is chirruping: 'In a few weeks you'll look back on all this and laugh'. It is laughable, but so tragically true to life.
We are mortal. We face pain and death, and our spiritually-bankrupt society is speechless. It has nothing of any worth to offer at all. Jesus came to bring life, and in dying and rising again he showed that the life he offers is eternal life. The empty tomb of Jesus brings true hope to a hopeless generation.
We have obviously only been able to look at a selection of Rupert Fawcett's cartoons. Perhaps some will say it is a biased selection. But, here is Fred and as we look at Fred we see ourselves. How does Fred need life? His materialist consumer world is a frustrating absurdity. He needs God. His cosy self-centredness and sin needs forgiveness and power to change. His hurt and vulnerable soul needs the love of the Good Shepherd who gives eternal life by his death. And the good news is that Jesus is not the figure of someone's creative imagination. He is history. He is truth. He is alive.
