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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Except for the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon’s Loci communes of 1521 were the most important of his writings.
The grass withered for them too, but they held on to God’s Word. They knew that was eternal, so they lived in it. They lived in his forgiveness.
Let us move beyond the milk and onto solid food — the meat of biblical, creedal, confessional theology in our preaching.
The night has passed and the day broken. In response to the morning dawn, birds sing, beasts arouse themselves and all humanity arises.
As the body positivity movement has gained traction, we must also be aware of some of its pitfalls
What God created, God will grow. We don’t add a few stitches onto his creation.
The new life Christ opened for us in His justifying resurrection, the new life into which we were baptized is a life of faith.
Baptism is always valid because no unrighteousness or faithlessness on our part could ify God’s faithfulness.
It isn’t that God struggles to believe our repeated cries of “wolf.” Rather, we struggle to believe God when he repeatedly comes to us with forgiveness and mercy on his lips.
The Psalms aren’t the clandestine successes of a faithful soul, but are the journaled hopes of a desperate soul — of one teetering on the edge of oblivion.
Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.
Jesus did not need a single act of mercy to get him started on the road to mercy, his essence was by nature merciful.