1. When we forget that we live by promise, that's when the danger tends to creep in. Because failing to embrace promise means we usually fall back into notions of luck, or even worse--into works.
  2. Jesus is the only answer to the nagging question. He is the only way to make sense of this unsettling story in Exodus 4.
  3. Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
  4. In the sacrament, we receive an earnest of that future promise here and now in the body and blood of Jesus given and shed for us.
  5. Jesus makes David’s words his own, because David’s words were Christ’s to begin with.
  6. The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
  7. If it’s all a fiction spun by disappointed disciples, if it’s a mere symbol for the idea of an inner awakening, if it’s not a fact that Christ has been raised, then our grief and loss have no end, and we have no hope.
  8. This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
  9. This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
  10. Forty days after giving birth, Mary, along with her husband Joseph, presented their firstborn Son at the temple and "bought" him back with a sacrifice of two small birds. This is known as the "Presentation of Our Lord."
  11. Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
  12. Christ our Word, as with a two-edged sword, burst the devil's belly.