This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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Then He went to the coffin. He touched it, like a carpenter sizing up the piece of wood He plans to turn into some sort of new creation, running His hand down its side.
It is the strangest of morgues—people arrive dead as doornails and leave alive.
So it is with my little garden as well; dead, so it would seem. Nothing. Barren.
Over and over, generation after generation, sinners repeat the same mistake. "How is it possible that God can be a man," we ask.
The side of God he has made known to us is Jesus. He is the one and only revelation of the Father, the one and only revelation we need.
He holds you tight and loves you even as you weep and fight in his arms. His Son suffers alongside you as your brother in the flesh.
Why was Jesus crucified? Not to save victims, but to save sinners.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
I started writing this article about a friend, her struggles through cancer, and the pain of an unfortunate and severe fall that landed her in a hospital, requiring months of rehabilitation.
Should we consider the tomb of Jesus completely empty, or just somewhat empty?
Before you ever know what happened, Satan has taught us to doubt the promise of the crucified and risen Christ.
On this night of nights, Christ arises victorious and sends the devil’s hordes running with no darkness to find cover; death’s dark shadow is gone