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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It was Jesus who appeared to Hagar, comforted her, and gave her the promise of future blessings. It was Jesus who came to her when it seemed everything and everyone else had let her down.
We see someone driving a fancy car, owning a big home, having healthy children and an attractive spouse. Instantly, almost without a second's thought, we assume they are successful. Life is good for them.
No, that is not a typo. I am telling you to put your trust in this Old Testament prophet. I want you to look at him and be assured of God’s love for you.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Richter scale, our friends over at Wikipedia define it as a 1930s invention that "is a base-10 logarithmic scale, which defines magnitude as the logarithm of the ratio of the amplitude of the seismic waves to an arbitrary, minor amplitude."
We shrink away from God’s godness and almightiness, and so shrink down our prayers. Perhaps it is a lack of faith. We don’t trust God to give what He himself has promised to give.
One thing is for certain: my day was heaven compared to his. My minor headaches nothing compared to whatever he was going through.
The most powerless person in this story is the key to it all. God uses her who is nothing to effect everything.
Today, if you look closely at my left eye, you’ll see one tiny speck of powder embedded in the whiteness.
Jesus takes that burden away in the “I forgive you and them” and gives us His “light” burden.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
Faith does not require that we always Hoorah what the Lord does. God wants children, not brown-nosers.
In this evil generation we’re all in the dark about something. We’re all inevitably overcome by the darkness of sin and death.