The Language of Joy

A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens on Easter Sunday, 2023

Joy is what comes when we move through the valley of death and come out the other side to find new life waiting for us. Joy is not just a happy feeling, but what happens to our whole bodies, our whole selves, when we live our lives as moving not towards death, but towards the greater life. Every moment we feel joy, it’s like an eruption of realizing that life is really all about resurrection. Because of love, death is not the most powerful force in the universe. Because of love, we have new life. Because of love, we have joy. Even in the midst of the hardest of times, the love of God fills us with new life, and echoes with the hymns of joy.