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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It all starts with God; and it all ends with God. He is the alpha and omega of giving and generosity.
Help comes for those who cannot help themselves. When we bottom-out and come to the end of ourselves, that is where hope springs.
He cuts into our darkness with words that work like a knife. They awaken us from our routine to a sliver of light. Jesus reigns and He will return.
Who is God really? He is offensive, anarchic by the world’s standards, and far too gracious to people who don’t deserve his time or attention.
As the church year ends, we are not give a vision of Jesus on His throne, ruling over a new creation. Instead, we see Jesus ruling from the cross. His grace comes in the midst of suffering and pain.
The mind-blowing part of this entire story, though, isn’t that only one leper came back to “give thanks,” but that the Lord Jesus healed all ten knowing full well that only one would come back.
Our God is a living God and he listens to our cries for help.
When God does not give you a life free from suffering, He calls you to look for Him in the midst of suffering. There you find Him doing His work, giving you words to speak and promises to hold onto.
From the beginning to the end of his letter, John really wants one thing: for us to be in Jesus.
The words of Jesus shine with a graceful brilliance among the broken fragments of this world.
To preach Christ and Him crucified is to reveal again the revealed God who saves.
The reason that God’s commandments are not burdensome is that Jesus has fulfilled them.