H. L. Mencken once defined puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time.” We can forgive the “Terror of Baltimore” his libel, in part because it is nice to have a man around who isn’t afraid to tell you what he thinks, and in part because every man knows that, whether or not the definition suits puritanism, it has at times suited himself. Man can sulk, and when he sulks, he would like everyone else to join him.

The Christian festival rides roughshod over the mirthless man, and there Easter is on the horizon. You have set your face to go to Jerusalem, following your Lord along the way, and now you can see the holy mountain there over the ridge. The real bugbear for the man who wants to take the black pill is that the Christian festival cannot be hedged in. You think it would stay to one day, but then it spreads festivity into seasons. It spreads festivity forward and backward from the day itself. Before Jesus rose on Easter Sunday, He was Easter Sunday—“I am the resurrection the life” (John 11:25). The Resurrection didn’t come at the end of the Jerusalem road. It plowed and seeded it, which is why Easter already rumbles.