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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Viewing the Word as a unified theological narrative prevents us from treating the Scriptures like a cage match between competing theological systems, with prophets duking it out with apostles, and psalmists with evangelists, all supposedly fighting for their voice to be heard.
Meeting the crown prince is one thing; meeting God in the flesh, as the Light of the Gentiles and the Savior of the world is another.
Christians do have a hope that those who sleep in death will be awakened and their joy will never end, and we yearn for that day.
Couldn't Mary and Joseph have used more practical gifts? Why did the magi bring such unusual presents to the Christ Child? And how do these Gentiles fit into this very Jewish part of Matthew's Gospel? Let's ask some Old Testament prophets and poets for the answer.
The church’s song goes on and on, singing and ringing down to us today.
This Epiphany text brings the coming of the Light and the Light shining in the darkness drawing all men to it together.
Not only does God reveal the identity of Jesus in this season through what we see and hear Jesus doing and saying, but God also reveals His gracious will through Jesus despite what we see and hear.
Paul is thinking of the cross and empty tomb, but the liturgical calendar places us at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not the end: Jesus standing waist deep in the Jordan River.
This Christmas season we are thankful that even though we “fallers” are unable to climb up to God, he came down the ladder to us.
The angel was very specific when he told Mary and Joseph to name the boy, Jesus. Why? What is the Hebrew background and meaning of his name? And how does knowing his name give us the key to his ear?
While the world and other religions might be fine with considering him everything but, the foremost thing our Jesus came to be and still remains is Jesus, Savior.
Buried deep in our human psyche, there seems to be more than a need—almost a necessity—to celebrate the arrival of a new year. It’s like an unspoken, unlegislated cultural demand, as instinctual as moving to music or smiling at a newborn. Why? What deep human need is at work here?