As Jesus hung on the cross there would be no last second escape. No Greek goddess would swoop in to rescue him. He suffered alone. And yet even in that suffering he declared his victory on the spiritual battlefield to be your victory.
God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.

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Our Judge (the one who can condemn us) has become our Advocate (the one who doesn’t condemn us) because he is also our Substitute (the one who takes our condemnation).
Free-range Christ is fearful Christ because he is present, speaking, and I just crucified him.
Sometimes loss is gain. Sometimes defeat is victory. Sometimes weakness is strength. Sometimes death is life. Sometimes, that is, when Christ is at the center, on his cross and not in his tomb.
God has found a way to be God even for the likes of us. He has found a way to save sinners.
Christ has come to make every last aspect of your life the object of his eternal, never-ending, always transitive grace.
Easter must be seen in light of the cross. It must never overshadow Good Friday. They are a packaged deal!
The world we inhabit is wrong in so many ways, and a holistic approach to this “wrongness” traces its cause both to sin itself and to the effects of sin.
You might not know it, but every Christian hopes for the day when their faith will die. Really. I promise. Faith’s death is our celebration.
I write this as someone who’s genuinely concerned that American congregants are getting bamboozled by preachers who are giving them less than what they need Sunday after Sunday.
At its heart, this is what Deacon King Kong is all about: the paradox of Jesus carving his victory out of the last thing we expect, not our triumphs but our defeats.
Viewing the Word as a unified theological narrative prevents us from treating the Scriptures like a cage match between competing theological systems, with prophets duking it out with apostles, and psalmists with evangelists, all supposedly fighting for their voice to be heard.
The Advents of Christ (past, present, and future) elicit faith in the word of Christ, confirmed by his presence.