“The fear of the Lord” is our heart’s awakening to and recognition of God’s outrageous goodness.
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.

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The episode of the boy Jesus in the Temple raises questions. It raised questions for Mary (and Joseph) and it raises questions for us.
Luke does not say much else about Anna, especially in comparison to Simeon. But the fact that he mentions her suggests she has something to teach your hearers today.
We don’t have to worry about deserving, earning, or reciprocating his gifts. Our Lord doesn’t give us what we deserve. We are given what he deserves, what Jesus has won for us.
The creation of this word reminds us that the Magnificat, like Christmas itself, is charged from the start with joy and praise.
Big or small, potential or certain, the despair we may grapple with during this time of year tends to find its end in the fact that things are not as they should be.
Jesus is both the image bearer and the image giver. In Jesus’ incarnation we are redeemed and re-imaged.
Sometimes it is the unnamed characters in the Bible who can most help present-day readers find their own place in the biblical story.
“The days are coming,” and God said it. God, who kept his promise that Christ would come at Christmas.
Like Isaiah and John, we look forward to that great and glorious day, trusting the resurrected One will return as He promised.
The oddness of this moment, at the beginning of Advent, is God’s way of saying, “The reason I’m here...”
Trust in the midst of trouble. That is what our Lord calls us to experience today.
The church is the only place God promises to lift us out of ourselves not in order to become more like God but so that we may finally be freed from our obsession with becoming little gods.