This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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Have you ever wondered, of all the adjectives we could use to describe this day why in the world we chose the word “good?” Yeah, me too.
The story of Christ crucified has a happy ending. Jesus has conquered the grave. He beat the death rap.
Jesus is many things. He’s an example. He’s a teacher. He’s a great thinker and philosopher. But He’s also so much more, and He’s one thing above all else: He is Jesus, Savior.
He reminds them how his love is truly marvelous and unconditional, but then, he looks them in the eyes, and says they ought to do better because of his love.
What is your fight club? Who is your Tyler Durden?
Apart from bare, naked faith in Jesus' atoning work for us, no sinner is, or ever can be, holy.
Sacrifice is the beating heart of the Scriptures, but also of our Christian faith.
Who was this Jesus, who could do such things?
True faith, saving faith that receives the good news about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is a faith created in us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel (Eph 2:8-9).
If you don’t believe Jesus Christ—that is, God in the man born of the Virgin Mary—died for the sins of the world, then you can’t evangelize.
The God who's lifted up above Calvary, abandoned and forsaken, should draw a more discerning crowd of followers.
I’m still laughing now as hard as I laughed back then. And the salve that he gave me in that moment still works some strange magic on me to this day.