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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Great things are contained in these seemingly unimportant words: "Behold, your king." Such boundless gifts are brought by this poor and despised king.
It is good to remember that this true story, is also beautiful.
The Lord sees the blood of the Lamb upon us, but does not merely pass over us in mercy. He passes into us by grace.
Passion Week preaching is not simply preaching about the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion but to announce to the world how through this single death, sins are answered for, and God is reconciled with humanity.
The LORD vindicates His people in the midst of their misery and despair—for this He has come.
The image on Palm Sunday is about something so primordial, so powerful and ancient, so deep, that it would shatter any kind of limits. It would break through any attempt to restrain it.
In the middle of the cosmic, creedal story, Paul places us, you and me, and all of those who belong by faith to Christ.
Preaching the inseparability of Jesus and Jerusalem is to proclaim God’s Messiah and the fulfillment of the Scriptures.
What grace is this? It’s grace from Christ, who often seizes us when we least expect it, even through the hands of His enemies.
The Exodus always remains a continual and present reality for the people of Israel—it is always on their mind. It was and remained the big salvific event of the Old Testament, yet at the same time it points forward to what God will yet/continue to do to save His people.
Paul puts everything he has gained by his religious life and training (verses 4-7) onto the scales opposite life with Christ and finds a real bargain.
This living Word breaks and crushes. It comes down as crushing judgment on those who reject the Son. But it promises to heal and restore all those who fall on the Son broken, contrite, and in faith.