This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer to the Christian Life (1517 Publishing, 2025). Sinner Saint is available today from 1517 Publishing.
On its journey from Byzantium to Constantinople to Istanbul, this special place helps us understand the broader arc of Christian history, which goes on until Christ's return.
We needn’t fear statistics and studies as palm readings into a certain future. God is God, and his Spirit is alive through his Word.

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Take away the communal aspect, take away the communal gathering around Christ’s body and blood, and the Christian will begin to suffer a malnutrition of faith.
With the resurrection of the Christ the mystery of life after death became a lot less mysterious.
If the Risen Christ is ushering in a new kingdom and a new creation, then maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to see some earth-shaking and mind-blowing things taking place.
There is no life when one is separated from the Promised Land because that will be the place where God will send His Messiah.
We confess the ascension of Christ every Sunday in the words of the both the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creed.
Absolution is the word God speaks to cause his sin-dead creation to live.
Just as the grave could not hold the Lord of Life, neither could the calendar contain Easter to just one Sunday.
For those of us who recognize the disciples’ despair in ourselves, Jesus comes with the same word: “Relax, it’s me. Peace be with you.”
God has a strange delivery system, the foolish preaching of the cross and foolish preachers for Christ’s sake delivering it.
Preaching is the vehicle of salvation because God engages in self-giving through the heralding of His Word.
Tomorrow Jesus will laugh his way out of the tomb, spit in the face of death, and kick the devil in the throat as he dances to the clapping glee of angelic masses. But today he just rests.
Like the women who came despite their questions, your hearers will gather despite their uncertainties, and they will be looking for a word of honest hope.