This year, I will be leading the Vespers service at a local retirement community on Easter Sunday, and as is my wont, I started looking through old Easter sermons that could be brushed up a little for this upcoming occasion. As I went through them, I kept tearing up. Why? Happily, not because they were terrible, but because they offered a word of hope, and I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear about hope, even from myself a few years back. It was hard to read the ones I offered during the pandemic, from my home or from an empty sanctuary, remembering the uncertainty of that time and the losses upon losses.

And though Easter is still shy of two weeks away, I offer the conclusion to one of them, if you’re a preacher in need of some hope or joy. I don’t claim that any of my words would even win a preaching prize (which is really a silly thing, after all) but sometimes you need a little bump to get you going.

In the meantime, Lent is still with us, and given all that’s happening, it may feel as though Lent is still with us after April 21. Even so, God always gets the last word, and Love always wins. Here you go.

Joy is the jitterbug meeting the waltz, and Rembrandt and Dr. Seuss comparing notes, and hope disguised as a gardener. And you? And I? What is our joy?

Joy is when the rains cease
Joy is when the baby squeals
Joy is the march
Joy is the old friend who shows up
Joy is the peace accord
Joy is the casserole
Joy is the grave cloths neatly folded away
Joy is the mountain decked in so much snow
Joy is the full table with everyone there
Joy is the story told again and again
Joy is the joke with life as the punchline
Joy is the fern unfurling
Joy is the empty tomb
Joy is the daphne and lilac and lavender
Joy is the gift that will not be taken back
Joy is life, and more life, and life after that.