There is a tendency for liberal minded Christians to need to have it all explained. Doubting Thomas is our hero. Show me, and then I'll believe. Easter is caught up in this struggle to be explained. The celebration is muted because we need to get it. We need to understand what happened. We need to set ourselves against our Christian sisters and brothers who simply, without thinking too hard about it, tell us that “he is risen”.

I want to make a case for a day or two of simple, unquestioned joy – the kind of joy that comes from the deepest “sads” turning into the greatest “happys”, the joy that comes when everything looked like it was turning into a disaster and it instead turns into a triumph.

Now maybe that's hard for you. Maybe those kinds of thing don't come along too often, so it's hard for you to relate.

But let's try. Let's try to put away all the doubts, all the questions, all the critique we might have for the way others understand it, and just let our souls be full to overflowing with joy.

After all, isn't that what the message of Easter is all about? Isn't it about the worst turning to the best – and not only the best in terms of new life from old – but the best in answers to ultimate questions. This is what it is all about, this is the clincher for the remarkable, insightful, iconoclastic, life altering, perspective altering, story of Jesus. It's a guide for the meaning of life, not the afterlife, not the next life, but this one.

Now just in case you think Peter has gone all fundy, let me try and explain... One of the marks of the religious life – and yes, I use that term with caution – religion isn't too exciting or trendy or popular these days – spirituality - yes, but religion – no. One of the marks of the religious life is optimism. Now don't get me wrong there are lots of religious pessimists as well – giving up on this life in favour of the one that follows, but I've read of many studies which say that religious people are happier, more joyful, more optimistic, more content than the average non-religious person.

The skeptic in me says that for many religious folks it is because they live in a dream world – a fanciful world that can't see the trouble we're in, or perhaps just an optimistic version of the religious pessimists I referred to a moment ago – giving up on this world because a better one is coming. But when I really sit down and think about it – I have to admit that it is also because we don't take ourselves too seriously. We don't have to, because we believe there is One who can do that much better for us – One who cares for us, who cares for the world, who cares for the world and us together. Yes, there is a pile of trouble all around us. The earth is quaking from the footprint we are making on it. It is coughing from the stuff we are sending into its lungs, from the surgery we are doing to limit its power to breathe, from the warmth we are creating that limits the necessary global air conditioner. It is enough for us to hope for a better life in the next one. But that's not the point I want to make here on this Easter Sunday. It's not about a hope for a better life in the next one. It's about letting the joy of Easter fill our souls to overflowing. To let it wash over us – with thanksgiving, with gratitude, with wonder, with marvel, with abundance, with anything you can think of that would make you want to do a happy dance – regardless of who is watching, regardless of how silly you might look, regardless of what others might be thinking.

That's what Easter is.

And then – like the battery recharger that Easter is – let that joy spill out in everything you do – in every way that you live as a member of the body of Christ from Easter Monday on.

Let it spill out in the way you interact with others – that they may see the face, or hands, or feet, or heart, or mind of Christ in what you do, that they may see the face, or hands, or feet, or heart, or mind of Christ in what we do.

Let that joy be a basis for the joy we make in our relationship with the earth – this is where we have to live this life – this is the habitat we share with not only every other living human being – but every living thing – and so we had better do our best to make it safe, secure, comfortable and livable.

Let that joy be a basis for the justice we seek in the world. One person's joy cannot be fulfilled when another one is suffering. Joy is this remarkable added sum thing – the more it exists in the heart, soul and mind of one – the more likely it is to be found in the mind, soul and heart of another. It's not a zero sum – all the joy on one side offset by sorrow on the other so that they create a lovely nothing on the balance sheet – it's an added sum – the more joy on one side the more there is on the other.

And remember, Thomas is still one of my heroes. I don't want to stop asking the questions. I don't want to stop probing the mind of God to make sense of what this world, what this life, what this universe is all about. I just want to let go for a day – to let myself be open to the presence of joy, to let it fill my soul without a filter, without a limit, without a funnel to narrow down or restrict the capacity for me to absorb it into the spaces inside the spaces of who I am.

And then with the resolve that comes from knowing that Jesus wanted us all to have a deep and earthy relationship with God – let his words and actions be a guide for us as seekers of justice, as storytellers of love, as examples of inclusion, as makers of peace, as messengers of surprise and new perspectives, as recipients of grace, as a means of grace.

May your Easter be one that finds your soul full of joy and then may you be one who lets that joy fill the lives of all around you in the days to come. Amen.