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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There is a revival, no less real and even more definitive, taking place in every church, every weekend, where God’s people gather around his gifts.
Jesus stands before the disciples as the bridge between heaven and earth, and between Old Testament and New Testament.
This week we will take a closer look at God's love in Scripture.
We too are God’s baptized, beloved, blood-bought believers. And no one can ever take that away from us.
Isaiah says in summary “liturgical ritual without works is dead” because we render the meaningful worship of God meaningless and even sinful when we do not love our neighbor.
Forty days after giving birth, Mary, along with her husband Joseph, presented their firstborn Son at the temple and "bought" him back with a sacrifice of two small birds. This is known as the "Presentation of Our Lord."
Christ our Word, as with a two-edged sword, burst the devil's belly.
He has given us more than a surprise Gospel in our text. He has given us everything we need for life and salvation in Him.
I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.
All of Scripture, every last syllable of it, is meant to drive us to "consider Jesus," the One who comes to "make us right" by gifting us his righteousness.
Jesus not only healed her daughter, but he also gave himself to her. Wherever she went from then on, he was with her.
He will safely birth us from this world, which is like a womb, into Heaven itself. On that day we will truly see the creation as it was made to be, restored and perfect in eternity forever.