The Heavens, January 7 – The LORD Almighty and His ministering angels are just tickled pink, as it were, by the hullabaloo surrounding cartoons and films mocking Muhammad, heavenly sources say.

“Thus saith the LORD: Thou canst not make this stuff up,” reported the archangel Gabriel, his seraphic cheeks ruddy from peals of hysteria. “For lo, not since Martin Luther’s earnestness have I seen thee worked up as the Euphrates doth churn in spring,” he continued, before collapsing in another fit. “Oh, LORD, thank Thee for not creating me with actual lungs, for they be deprived now of air,” he managed to gasp.

Angels have noted the LORD’s mirth since trailers for The Innocence of Muslims were first released in July two years ago, as He anticipated the reaction of His more manipulable children. “By My sacred Name, I cannot wait for the feces to hit the fan,” the LORD is said to have uttered as He beheld the horribly acted, obviously overdubbed piece of cinematic trash.

Heavenly giddiness has occurred before, notably during periods when there was an antipope, and whenever large groups of cult members immolate or otherwise kill themselves in anticipation of some apocalyptic or cataclysmic event. According to heavenly archives, the heavens shook with Godly laughter in 1997 when 39 adherents of the Heaven’s Gate movement committed mass suicide, expecting a spaceship to follow the approaching comet Hale-Bopp. “Oh Me, those idiots,” He said on that occasion, over and over again.

Similarly, The Creator finds continual amusement in the Raelians, a UFO cult that claimed in 2002 that it had cloned a human, and in fans of the Cleveland Indians, who clearly cannot take a hint.

Records were not kept before 200 BCE, but the earliest confirmed episode of Godly amusement at humanity’s foibles occurred as early Christians debated the question of celibacy. That joke has since grown old to God, says spokesangel St. Peter, but under the right circumstances it still elicits a divine chuckle. “Just a couple of years ago [archangel] Michael was commenting on the soon-to-be-announced manuscript mentioning Jesus’s wife – he said, ‘Does this mean the LORD tells mother-in-law jokes?’ God smiled and gave Michael a satisfied whack on the back. Poor guy is still having his wings repaired.”

The second chapter of Psalms directly refers to the LORD as laughing at people who plan evil, but the dating of that passage in in dispute. Attributed to King David, the book was actually composed over several centuries, with some portions heavily edited. God Himself declared He does not much care when it was written; the dating is irrelevant to the psalm’s meaning.

Heavenly media screens have been busier than usual in recent weeks as angels and departed souls watch the streaming video trailers and view the satirical cartoons to discover what all the fuss is about, and to join God in bouts of laughter. “It’s been unusually jolly here,” said the patriarch Isaac, whose name means “He will laugh” in Hebrew, and who knows a thing or two about the divine sense of humor. “The LORD has taken to looking over the shoulders of anyone watching and sharing the laughter with them as the train wreck unfolds on the screen and on Earth below.”

“It’s really only the Jews who get it,” mused Isaac. “They continuously get shafted throughout history, and they keep disproportionately producing comedians. Why do you think God chose them?” He then shuffled away, the victim of yet another divine stealth wedgie.

“Now that doth not get old,” the LORD was heard to say.