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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From the beginning to the end of his letter, John really wants one thing: for us to be in Jesus.
This is an excerpt from the Sinner/Saint Advent Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2022), written by Kathy Morales and Kyle G. Jones.
Whatever else may be said about the Last Day it consists of these two inseparable things: Christ’s coming and His kingdom people being gathered to Him.
The name of God invites us on a journey to see how God will remain present with his people, listen to their cries for salvation, know their sufferings in such an intimate way so as to incarnate them in Christ.
The words of Jesus shine with a graceful brilliance among the broken fragments of this world.
Through water, blood, and word, the Spirit never stops pointing us to Christ, and even more, giving us Christ.
Even though All Saints is a day for remembering the dead, it is not a day of mourning.
The good news is that with our God there is always more: more than we deserve, dare, ask, or expect, more than we can see, hear, feel, or think.
There is no true life and meaningful community apart from forgiveness.
The phrase “works of the law” has an antithesis when it comes to righteousness—faith. What keeping the Law could not do, the gift of faith does.
No efforts to create worship as a delectable dish to attract people to our services will ever work, because it is only what God gives to us in His Word and Sacrament that can satisfy the hungry and thirsty soul.
To preach Christ and Him crucified is to reveal again the revealed God who saves.