God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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Too often, we equate “repent” as the final warning to stop a particular sin before God ceases to love you and sends you to hell for your evil deeds.
When we imagine we’re living an evil-shunning, virtue-practicing, morally superior Christian life, the problem is not that our halos are too small, but that our heads are too big.
Jesus is in the business of proclaiming such a beautiful redundancy.
Advent accents preaching, making known that it is the Lord who comes to bring salvation, to proclaim this in all the earth.
God’s Law is a death sentence for us sinners. There is no winning beneath the Law of God.
God has given us a way out of our plight of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” It is the way of the cross.
Gone, abolished, put away with, undone, and destroyed are any and all notions that my repentance unlocks, sets free, or earns God’s forgiveness.
Neither did Christ’s absolution “run out” nor “reach a limit” due to Judas’ sin.
Repentance is not a call to improve. It is a call to die.
You say: Since forgiveness depends on faith alone, why must one nonetheless do good works? Answer: If faith is of the true sort, it cannot be without good works, just as no good work can be where unbelief dwells.
Christ has come, does come, and will come. He has set you free from the prison of sin and death.
What comes to us at Christmas is not a great seasonal bargain to enhance our happy holidays. It is the priceless gift of God’s Son.