The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.
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.

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In the face of abject evil, these two faithfully cling to the words and truths of he alone who is Good, Jehovah God.
The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.
When Luther was in the pulpit, he was teaching, and when he was in the lecture hall at the podium, he was preaching. Linebaugh’s outstanding book will help contemporary pastors to do the same.
God’s gifts, in turn, conform our minds to the mind of Christ, and catechize our imagination in the image of God’s Son.
Make no mistake, sinners are in fact being pursued by a most hideous beast called sin, death, and the devil, unleashed and striking continuously.
In the Church, the cry is, “He loves,” and it is that message which transforms our worldviews from taking to giving, from radical individualism to trans-demographic inclusivism, from selfishness to selflessness, from “tolerate my rights” to “loving rightly together.”
History won’t judge us, Jesus will. We already have his judgment. He gave it to us from the cross, where he acquitted us with his death.
Free-range Christ is fearful Christ because he is present, speaking, and I just crucified him.
Easter must be seen in light of the cross. It must never overshadow Good Friday. They are a packaged deal!
Simon carried the cross, but Jesus was carried by the cross to death.
My one hope of not only entering a right relationship with God but also stepping into glory is the same: it’s Christ. It’s always Christ.
Treating preaching as a battle with the Devil keeps a preacher on the offense and prevents him from being caught off guard.