“Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem,” God tells the Israelites in Isaiah 52, and two chapters later, “Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy…” Is God so cruel as to command a ruined city to rejoice—to ask an infertile woman to sing for joy?
When the world around us is bleak, how do we find joy?