Weekly Sermon: 04-12-2026 - Joy Sunday

The Holy Gospel according to John.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were

locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among

them and said, Peace be with you.

After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples

rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,

Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

But Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them,

unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark

of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.

A week later, his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them.

And although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands.

Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.

Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.

Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not

written in this book, but these are written so that you may continue to believe

that Jesus is the Messiah,

the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

When one of our kids was pretty small and young, they were struggling with a few things.

Some of it was coming from comparing themselves to siblings.

Some of it was just wanting a place to go all their own.

And I was worried that I was flunking as a mom.

So I went to a counselor who spent time with our little ball of anger and also

then spent some time with me.

And much to my relief, the counselor said that this was pretty normal,

garden variety family stuff.

Growing up is hard, and it can be tough even before you get to kindergarten.

But I'll never forget what he said next.

I can't remember his name, but I can still see him looking straight at me when he said,

You know that your job as a mother is not to make your children happy, right?

And I gave him this confused look and I said.

Well, no. Maybe, yes. Is this a trick question?

I mean, what mother doesn't want to make their kids happy?

But he said it again, it's not your job as a mom to make your kids happy.

And he could tell that I did not know this because I was working pretty hard

every single day to make my kids happy.

I thought that was my job and no wonder I was exhausted. And then he said something

that helped me shift and see things differently.

And he said, your job as a mom is to help your children cope with whatever happens

in life, both the good stuff and the bad stuff and the hard stuff.

They're not always going to be happy, but they can grow up feeling supported

and feeling like they can handle whatever comes their way.

So this moment not only made me a better parent, it helped me understand the

difference between happiness and joy.

Because I was trying to make my child happy in circumstances that were not going to change.

And what I needed to do instead was to help them learn how to live in those circumstances.

How to see what was still good. How to make the best of it.

And maybe experience joy.

Even when happiness wasn't possible. Because happiness, I realized,

is about circumstances, things going our way, life working out how we want.

But joy, joy is something much deeper.

Joy can carry us through when nothing goes our way.

Maybe, maybe you too have had a moment like this when something just clicked

and you realize that there's a difference between happiness and joy,

which is down here deep in the gut.

This is exactly what happens to the Apostle Paul and what he is talking about

when he writes, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice.

Always? Hmm. You know, Paul isn't writing this from the beach somewhere.

He's actually writing from prison.

And then he says something just as surprising.

I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

I have learned whatever the circumstances.

Joy for Paul is not automatic. It's something that grows over time,

something he practiced.

And it's also something rooted in not what's happening around him,

but rather what's happening inside of him,

what's holding him, where he's centered, where he's rooted, where he's focused,

which of course is always and only rooted in the risen Lord.

And what about the disciples? They are not happy or joyful at the beginning of our story today.

They are hiding behind locked doors. Their world has fallen apart.

They're shaking with fear.

And right into that fear, Jesus comes to them. Peace be with you.

And then he shows them his scars. Jesus is really alive again.

How do they react? They rejoice when they see the Lord.

Joy doesn't come because their circumstances have suddenly improved.

The world is still dangerous.

Roman oppression is still the rule of the land. Their future is still very uncertain.

But Jesus is here, and that changes everything.

Joy comes from the presence of the risen Christ.

Even Thomas, who misses that first moment, who doubts and questions,

when he finally sees Jesus, he doesn't say, Well, now everything is easy.

No, he says, My Lord and my God.

Joy is born in a deep and abiding relationship with God, my Lord, and my God.

It is born in trust.

It is in knowing that we are never alone.

Like the Apostle Paul, the disciples experience deep joy, not because of the

circumstances happening around them,

but because of what's happening inside of them.

Who is holding them where they are centered, rooted, and focused?

And that is found always in their relationship with the risen Lord.

So what does all of this mean for us?

Because we are still tempted every day to chase after happiness, which is fleeting.

The right job, enough money, the right car.

We want to fix everything. We want to smooth things over.

We want to make life work just right for ourselves, for our kids,

no matter how old they are.

I still find myself trying to make my kids happy sometimes, you know,

the urge sometimes never goes away, even though I always try to catch myself and shift.

But we always are trying to be tempted to fix for everyone we love.

But you know, maybe that's not the goal.

Maybe the goal is not happiness. The value that lasts is learning joy.

Joy. This week, I invite you to try three ways to pay attention and to experience joy.

Finding joy in simple things is a great way to start.

It helps us see God's love show up in small ways. And we do this by noticing

the good that is already here.

Taking time to laugh at the unexpected, at puns, at silly jokes.

You know, sometimes we just look them up on our phone, Dan and I,

especially when we're with our dad, my dad, and we just read them just to be

silly, like the dumbest puns you've ever heard.

And, you know, partly because we love to watch my dad, who's 90, go like this.

You know? And then my sister sits at the end of the table and tries to video it.

So we have that in perpetuity, my dad's eye roll.

That is joy. That is pure joy for us.

Going outside and going for a walk and seeing how many different colors you see.

Pausing long enough to say, thank you, God, for this right here, this moment.

You know, we got another set of those dice out there in the gathering area, and you can roll the die.

And there's a different table prayer on each side of the die.

So if you don't have one, doesn't matter if you don't have kids or grandkids,

joy, right? Take the die.

Even if you're eating in a solitary meal, roll the die, say the prayer, right? How fun is that?

Help each other and children that are in your life, whether it's nieces or nephews,

or you help your neighbor with their kids, whatever it is, name what's hard

without rushing to fix it.

Do something positive on hard days. Go get ice cream. Call a relative or friend who is far away.

Teach them that they're loved always, no matter what.

Give them confidence that they can handle hard things, and they can handle more than you think.

A second way to instill joy is spontaneity. You know, Jesus showed up for the

Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road and the disciples in the resurrection in a

spontaneous, surprising way.

You know, nobody was expecting it. Have you ever thought about that?

It was spontaneous, wasn't it? I think we undervalue spontaneity.

Practicing spontaneity can open our eyes for what God is up to.

It's always a surprise, isn't it?

We're never expecting a stranger to be kind to us, right?

God shows up in spontaneity. So I think that's a great way to practice our faith and joy.

One year we were on vacation with

all of Dan's family, and we rented this enormous house on Lake Michigan.

And it came to the last day and it was time to clean everything up.

Well, there was still ice cream in the freezer, so we let the kids have ice cream for breakfast.

Now, our kids have had more vacation moments over the years than they could

possibly remember, but they remember that one.

And that memory still brings a lot of joy because it was spontaneous and wonderful.

Dan tells the story of a summer after fourth or fifth grade,

and his dad had just gotten home from work in Manhattan.

And he looked at Dan and he said, do you want to go to a baseball game?

And off they went. And his dad changed his clothes and they lived in New Jersey.

He had just driven all the way back an hour or whatever it was from work and

he got back in the car with Dan

and they drove all the way back into Shea Stadium to go to a Mets game.

Dan can still tell you who the pitcher was, who they played,

and what the final score was.

Now, he's been to hundreds of baseball games that he does not remember,

but he remembers all of that. I can't mistake.

Say statistics from that game. Why? Because the spontaneity was a gift of deep joy.

He felt loved.

A great way to spark learning joy is through spontaneity.

It helps us notice when love and therefore God is showing up.

Wherever love is happening, God is showing up.

Third, and most of all, we practice joy by pointing our children and ourselves back to our Savior.

You see how easy this is to remember? Small, simple things, spontaneity,

our Savior. See? Pneumonic devices.

Okay? Small and simple, spontaneity, our Savior. There you go.

Because joy isn't something that we manufacture. It's something that we receive.

Joy is knowing that even when life is messy, even when things don't go our way,

even when the door feels closed and we're afraid, Jesus still stands among us

and says, peace be with you.

So having received the joy of the Lord today, we are going to celebrate joy together after church.

Not in some big complicated way, but in small, simple, real ways.

Cards for Carol and Tom. Isn't it awesome that two people who met at St.

Luke's are getting married?

I can't tell you how much joy this gives me. Yay!

Their love and marriage brings joy to all of us. So we have cupcakes.

We're giving them cards. We're going to have conversations.

We have myself this morning. We have, well, it's a little rainy for sidewalk chalk.

However, we have games and we can play them in the hallway, like Connect Four.

And what is that thing where you toss the beanbag in the hole of the ball?

Cornhole. And there's that game where you have the balls on the string and you

throw it and you try to get it onto a bar. What is that called?

Ladder golf. Thank you. I've been trying to think of the name for that for like a week.

Ladder ball. We have ladder ball. Even though it's raining, we can play this

down these great hallways that we have.

We have more bubbles. Is this the first time we've ever had bubbles in worship?

I think that's a first for me. Woohoo for bubbles in church.

Okay. We have more bubbles.

These are all moments that remind us joy doesn't have to be perfect.

It doesn't have to be earned.

It just shows up in the middle of ordinary life. And when we notice it and let

it grow in us, and when we share it, and when we laugh and play and celebrate together,

we become the kind of community that helps one another experience and hold on

to joy, even when life is hard, because we don't do this alone.

We rejoice together. We practice joy together. We follow Jesus together.

The good news is that joy is not something we have to make or that we have to chase.

Joy already comes to us, risen, alive, standing among us, saying every day of

our lives, peace and joy be with you.

Amen. Go forth into the world, strengthened in Christ to live with values that

stink, sharing the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Tell others what Jesus has done for you and invite them to St.

Luke's as you love, serve, and welcome all.

Thanks be to God, and we will. If you're inspired by this week.