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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Your loving Lord is not oblivious to your pain and sadness.
God's Son comes to deal with the infestation of sin, but in an unforeseen twist of grace, he’s the only one who goes under the knife.
Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.
God excludes our boasting out of his abundant mercy.
On May 2nd, Cantate Sunday, in the year 1507, Luther celebrated his first Mass.
To give us God’s name, the name that is above every name, Christ gave us the exact words to say at baptism: the name of the triune God who is three persons, one God: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
False holiness is always a possession and achievement of the individual in isolation from the good of others. And so it isn’t holiness at all.
We cannot love first. Therefore God comes, takes hold of the heart, and says: "Learn to know me."
Sometimes it’s important to go far away to learn of holy places back home.
God is often hidden in history, even as we make it now, but He is always manifest where He has promised to be.
God is not a preoccupied parent, he’s an invested and interested tender loving Father. He values what perplexes us.
When we own up to our sin, our Father is not scandalized, and his response is not to reconsider his calling us.