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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Peterson would have us see each sermon embedded in the community of the faithful. No sermon stands alone because its context is not merely the liturgy, much less an online livestream, but the life together of God’s people.
We don’t start with behavior and work toward Christ. We start with Christ and everything works out from there.
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.
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.
Clarity enables mobility. When preachers make the message clear, the people of God are freed-up to follow Jesus.
This parable does its surprising work of turning everything upside-down, as Christ’s Kingdom always does.