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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I trust that because of the gospel, God will continue to mend what I, in my sin, continue to break.
1517 would not exist without the leadership, friendship, and faithfulness of Pastor Ron Hodel.
Jesus does not put us on trial and make us pay for our own sin, but he, himself, is put on trial in our place.
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.
Make no mistake, sinners are in fact being pursued by a most hideous beast called sin, death, and the devil, unleashed and striking continuously.
If you sit where Joseph sits, then you also face the choice that Joseph faced. Do you respond with vengeance?
The God who abundantly restores is still in the business of total restoration, even today. Even now the God of heaven restores dead sinners to life.
Our Judge (the one who can condemn us) has become our Advocate (the one who doesn’t condemn us) because he is also our Substitute (the one who takes our condemnation).
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.
On Good Friday, poetic justice is satisfied. Poetic mercy is all which remains.
Simon carried the cross, but Jesus was carried by the cross to death.
Out there the instincts to protect yourself from embarrassment, ridicule, and rejection can easily overcome you as they did Peter. Our only hope is in Peter’s Lord.