Luther felt the reform of the church could not simply remain a matter of aesthetics and practice. Something much deeper needed to be rooted out.
While God can, and often does, appear to people face to face, he also often employs the use of several types of messengers.
The “further up and further in” we go, the table keeps getting bigger, the guest list keeps getting longer, and the grace keeps on flowing.

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This is an excerpt from the book, “Paul and the Resurrection” written by Joshua Pagán (1517 Publishing, 2020).
Saying the words of the prayer together meant that if my voice became too weak or shaky, other voices would be around to support and continue the message.
There is a power that is stronger and mightier than the power of separation in death. And that power is the power of God’s love for you and me.
I rededicated my life as many times as I could when the guilt was unbearable. I would read my Bible more and pray more, yet I still struggled. I knew deep down, I was breaking God’s heart with my failure at being his child.
It is that love, finally, which comes back again and again, not as an afterthought, but as the underlying theme of the entire section.
By basing our assurance on the promises of God, which we not only hope for in the future but live in now, the Christian can finally rest in the comfort that they are both saved and not responsible for their own salvation.
The Earth itself, into which the blood of Christ seeped, will be redeemed and renewed, just like our spirits in Holy Baptism, just like our bodies on the day of the resurrection.
In our attempts to flee from our fears and escape death, we will become imprisoned by them.
Our passage from Romans steers us between these two dangerous misconceptions: The mythical monster Scylla of believing the body to be evil on the one shore, and the beast Charybdis of believing the body constitutes all there is on the other.
Comfort is not a platitude; it is a promise. A promise from our God who left his place of glory and died a sinner’s death for poor sinners.
That is why we dance on graves. That is why we smile in the midst of sorrowful tears. That is why we retell old stories and share humorous memories.
When the old Adam hears a command, he hears a prescription. Like a coach drawing up a play so you can win the game.