What changed Martin Luther from a man filled with gloom and despair to a man filled with unceasing joy? This monk had been a sad man who was terrified of death, a desperate man who retreated to a monastery to escape his feelings of guilt, a hopeless man who saw Jesus as an angry judge ready to exact eternal punishment. What changed him?

What changed Luther was nothing less than the power of the gospel. The Holy Spirit led Martin Luther to discover in the pages of Scripture one simple yet profound truth that he had failed to find in a lifetime of searching elsewhere. The righteousness before God that he had worked so hard to achieve by his own effort was not something that could be gained by trying or doing. Righteousness before God, the Scriptures assured him, was something that comes only as a free gift from God’s grace as a result of the saving work of Jesus Christ, through simple faith and trust worked by the Holy Spirit.

For the first time in his life, Martin Luther knew the joy of sins forgiven, death defeated, and eternal life secured. He knew the kind of joy that no trouble, no threat, and no enemy could ever take from him. He learned the joy that saw him through the deaths of loved ones, the threats to his own life, and the treachery of trusted friends. And once he had learned true joy in Christ, he could look forward to the future with unshakable hope and optimism rooted in the power and promises of God.

By God’s grace, we are heirs of the Lutheran Reformation. This means that we have the very same reasons as Luther did to be people filled with joy for today and optimism for the future.

Being joyful does not mean always being happy. We know from experience that life in a sinful world will bring days of sorrow and frustration. Our plans fail. Our bodies get sick. Our loved ones die. But underneath the sadness and sorrow that we experience is a joy that never fades. Even when happiness comes and goes, our joy in Christ, in his salvation, in his resurrection, and in his promises, never fades.

With that Christian joy comes Christian optimism. If today we have the joy of knowing that we are God’s people in Christ, then we also can look ahead to tomorrow with a confident hope that our lives, our times, and our future—and that of our synod—lies completely in the hands of the same gracious God who has adopted us as his children.