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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Since God is most high, He can only look down. Nothing is above Him. No one is more exalted than He is.
The prophets of old were right: we do resemble what we revere. Our anthropology is hijacked by materialism. We become just stuff who consume stuff and hope to have enough stuff to make life worth it.
One of my jobs in high school was helping local ranchers work cattle. We’d vaccinate, cut off horns, castrate, mark their ears, and brand them.
Pastors are built from the same stuff as everyone else. That’s good, and that’s bad.
I finally climbed all 109 mountains. My journey began out of desperation, fueled by anger, fear, resentment.
We have at least one thing going for us: we know the first of these two days —our birthday.
Our American ethos trumpets the ideal of the rugged individual who doesn’t need anyone else. But that’s not only a lie; it’s also the recipe for disaster.
Just as we believe ourselves to be forgiven because God sees us in Christ, so to forgive others is to see them as God sees them in Christ. To forgive, in other words, is to put God’s eyes in our eyes and our eyes in God’s eyes.
How long, O Lord, will the voice of children’s blood cry out to You from the ground?
Some things, once they are deemed disgusting or contaminated, permanently carry that quality with them. These things are even thought to be “contagious,” negatively affecting whatever they come into contact with.
When people are baptized, time is transcended. They go back to the Jordan and the Jordan comes forward to them. In a single splash, or a single dunk, they enter the war.
If I were granted three wishes, one of them would not be to know what the future holds.