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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All creation joins together to repeat the sounding joy.
Our brokenness cuts deeper than just the times when we recognize it needs to be fixed.
Despite its familiarity and frequent usage, the imagery in "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," is often underappreciated.
The Son of Eve disarmed Satan’s hold on humanity, not with an earthquake, atomic bomb, or brilliant essay, but with his dead body and final words, “It is finished.”
JFK was not the only national figure who died on November 11, 1963. Though his death certainly took up most of the headlines, the acclaimed writers C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley also died that day as well.
When we ask ourselves, "My God, how did I get so lost," he answers, "I am the God who comes to seek and save the lost in the power of my resurrection.
Our smartphones, tablets, and laptops tempt us to enter into a virtual world without flesh and blood. A world without concrete, real consequences. No real pain or suffering, and no actual death.
The devil knows our name and labels us by our sin. The devil breathes out death as he names us for what we are, sinners.
So long as we entrust death to Jesus, new life is ours. He has lunch ready and he is waiting for us in the power of his resurrection.
We expect the world to shoot its wounded. But not even the world expects Christians to shoot their wounded.
Jesus knows your name. Whether you’re a boy named Sue or a beggar named Lazarus, the God who named that forgotten man has not forgotten you.
The danger of denying the truth of our common human fallenness and brokenness by original sin is that the denial of this doctrine may also lead us to the denial of Christ as our Savior.