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.
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.

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God’s love is axiomatic; it just is. It’s a truism without a logical explanation.
The only one rightful heir of the kingdom of God, inherits from us, our cross, and descends into the kingdom of the damned.
Christ strikes a blow first against the presumption of those who would storm their way into heaven by their good works.
While baptism is a “once and for all” event that should not be repeated in the Christian’s life, the effects of baptism continue throughout the life of the believer.
The giver of life, the source of joy, stands weeping together with the human family as they grieve under the curse of sin.
We can not give our Heavenly Father anything that will make him love us more or less. He gives and we receive.
Take away the communal aspect, take away the communal gathering around Christ’s body and blood, and the Christian will begin to suffer a malnutrition of faith.
As the sin-bearer, Jesus was also the sin-confessor in the psalms.
“Poverty of spirit” is not an ethical value we strive for. It is an act of God’s mercy spoken to the deepest recesses of our soul when it’s overwhelmed by God’s grace.
The reformers were compelled to confess the true faith and challenge corrupt practices—this is what the Augsburg Confession is about.
Our certainty is of Christ, that mighty hero who overcame the Law, sin, death, and all evils.
The story of Juneteenth is one of living between proclamation and emancipation, and the story of the Christian faith is one of living in that same tension.