This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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This Savior’s love for His church is no small thing. He gives up His own life so that she will live.
This is the first of seven words of Christ from the cross.
The disciples and Christ have just finished their last meal together. The disciples, of course, didn't know this, but Jesus did.
Jesus is the great Houdini of the grave for us. And through His death, He gives us the Great Escape from death that leads to the great joy of the Resurrection.
In elementary school, children are taught that America was a destination for Christians in search of religious freedom. But that’s not the truth.
God’s telling a joke. And after we’re done laughing at this silly divinity, we realize that the true joke is on us.
If there is no resurrection, then we have no true hope, and the arts above all vocations would be the folly of follies.
The greatest joy of Lent is failing at it only to find Jesus has already done it for us.
God’s grace and freedom announces the truth to us about ourselves. We need a real Savior.
Christ’s flesh and blood is light that the darkness cannot comprehend.
Whenever I read the Genesis account of Abraham, I’m more impressed that he’s often a clumsy, mess of a man than that it’s “faith that’s accounted to him as righteousness.”
Jesus went on ahead and took our cross, our sins of poor discipleship, our weak faith, our rebellion against God’s command.