“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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We prefer God to forgive our sin by not paying attention to it. Then our prayer is not for grace but that God would overlook and wink at us from the sidelines.
Here is someone to love; they’re not a Christian. They’re not very clean and don’t seem to care. Love them. Let your life become intertwined with theirs. Let it cost you something.
If you and I were to examine our own lives, we’d likely have to admit that we are frequent disciples of Jeroboam’s “bootleg religion.”
The irony of our idolatry is that many of our idols could and would speak the gospel to us if we would listen.
The law is good and holy but so often when we are “shoulding” on one another, we actually are just going to end up “burning” each other’s fields.
The Holy Spirit is sent, not to talk about himself, but to point us to Jesus.
We have the Gospel in Word and the Gospel in Sacrament. Both are poised to declare the peace of the Lord, the good news of God’s forgiveness because of the life, vicarious atonement, and resurrection of Jesus the Son.
The Apostle Peter’s monumental sermon on Pentecost declares the Kingdom purposes and divine saving work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which culminates in the new world order with Christ in charge.
The whole point of Church is to be in a place that hands over the gifts and promises of Jesus Christ to dirty rotten sinners who are in desperate need of them.
What is it, though, that makes bedtime so fraught with anxiety?
Faith isn’t something that needs to be done. It’s something to be enjoyed because faith is a gift bestowed by God’s word through the hearing of the Gospel.
In Christ, we live beneath an open heaven having the definitive proof in the cross of Christ that God is outrageously for us, not against us.