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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The creatures and the elders show us what to do now. They hit the deck, sing, and worship, so we would know what the liturgy is supposed to look and sound like.
Resurrection life is not something cast into the future. The future is now.
He continues to gather other sheep in, and He does it through the selfless serving and the gracious speaking of His people.
Jesus rejects what we believe is most necessary and instead points us to his pain, suffering, death, and self-sacrifice.
After more than a year of facing our collective mortality as a species, the promise of a physical resurrection is welcome news.
Preachers are called to consider how the resurrection reverberates in the present but also the future.
The promise you will make, which brings about the presence of Christ and creates rejoicing, is the peace Jesus brought to the disciples that night behind locked doors.
In the next three weeks, Saint John will explore some of the implications of the resurrection, especially for Christians as they consider how to live in the present and what is in store for us in the future.
You can’t bear your own sins, to say nothing of getting rid of them.
Like the women who came despite their questions, your hearers will gather despite their uncertainties, and they will be looking for a word of honest hope.
In the resurrection Jesus transcended time, space, and death; those things which limit human existence. So, the stone was not rolled away for Jesus, but for the disciples and for us.
The true liberty that Christ gives to us through the gospel is not political. It is spiritual freedom. It is freedom from fear of God's judgment and wrath.