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.
We needn’t fear statistics and studies as palm readings into a certain future. God is God, and his Spirit is alive through his Word.

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Out of His mind indeed, as He took our place between murderers and received the insults and torture of humanity.
When it comes to this world, our beds are most often a mess even when we do our best to make them in the morning.
We are called to proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of the Answer incarnate, Jesus Christ, and in love respond to the questions that inevitably arise against it.
When we focus on God's self-giving Word, when we turn our attention to Golgotha, we are shown a wholly different way of viewing the Commandments.
Because of Jesus, we don’t have to pretty up anything ugly thing in life.
His consolation will accompany us in the midst of sickness and death. He will strengthen us, even strengthen us to carry the cross of old age.
Come to the feast where evil and good, wise and foolish, shameful and shaming are welcomed as citizens of the kingdom.
Jesus is the great Houdini of the grave for us. And through His death, He gives us the Great Escape from death that leads to the great joy of the Resurrection.
If there is no resurrection, then we have no true hope, and the arts above all vocations would be the folly of follies.
The greatest joy of Lent is failing at it only to find Jesus has already done it for us.
We all look forward to Lent’s conclusion and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday. This is the Sunday of victory and joy as the Church enters into the reality that Christ has defeated death and hell, declared victory over such enemies and set history on its final course of consummation.
Now, resurrection can only follow upon death. The good news is, it will!