Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

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The church’s song goes on and on, singing and ringing down to us today.
So what, if anything, makes us different from those who are waiting on the grassy knoll in Dallas, TX? Can we be any more sure of our belief in the resurrection?
If Jesus is indeed the same yesterday, today, and forever, everything his enfleshment brings is already assured: life, salvation, and forgiveness.
In Advent we wait, in Christmas we rejoice over the coming of Christ in the fulfillment of the promises, and in Epiphany we celebrate the surprise, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.
That's how true faith talks. It doesn't talk about itself. It says "Thank you!" to the one who gives healing and salvation.
The church is the only place God promises to lift us out of ourselves not in order to become more like God but so that we may finally be freed from our obsession with becoming little gods.
A Sermon on Psalm 130:3–6.
What do Habakkuk and Israel have? Nothing but the word of God. Nothing but the promise of God. Nothing but God himself.
In contrast to the human courts of our land, the Divine court never makes errors nor excuses
One could reason that God might, at least, give the church a little worldly power.
Trust may risk, but trust produces a sense of assurance letting us rest easy and enjoy peace while it drives us to ventures which may seem dangerous but are possible to do because trust defies the dangers.
Even if not a turning point, 1518 is a point of no return for Luther.