1. Regardless of background or beliefs, every American I talk to seems on edge, as if the sky were about to fall. But the sky is not falling.
  2. This is the sound of freedom. The Eternal One died so that we who are dying might live eternally with him.
  3. A truly Lenten mindset sees the season as preparatory for the resurrection life of Easter as opposed to the mortification of Good Friday.
  4. He declared you what you might not always feel you are, but what you were from the moment he knew you, before you were you, when he foreknew you.
  5. Your champion steps forward.
  6. The number forty calls to remembrance narratives of God’s great acts of redemption, but also our conformity to and participation in those narratives.
  7. We are the fruit that grows from the branch, which extends from the trunk of the tree, which is rooted in the soil that it grows out of, which is all Christ.
  8. Regularly reading and hearing God’s Word helps us to keep a song in our hearts.
  9. What if the dissonance in this calendrical coincidence can be harmonized into a deeper melody?
  10. The driving impulse of Lent isn’t so much “giving up” things as it is “putting on” something.
  11. At the Transfiguration, we say farewell to alleluia and hello to the horrific reality of our lost condition.
  12. My goal here isn’t to selfishly reflect on all the reasons I will miss Rod because I know that if you are reading this, you may miss this man, too.