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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Like her Lord, the Church has dirt under her nails, the smell of coffin wood on her clothes, and a hunger in her belly.
What is your fight club? Who is your Tyler Durden?
They stood on their feet, the Father's host, Alive in the Son and Holy Ghost.
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.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
The story did not end with Jesus' death and resurrection, or even with the Acts of the Apostles.
It is the strangest of morgues—people arrive dead as doornails and leave alive.
“It’s bigger on the inside” is not only an evocative literary device, it is also a phrase heavy laden with Good News found in the true story of Christianity, especially at Christmas.
So it is with my little garden as well; dead, so it would seem. Nothing. Barren.
Recently I’ve met many people that have suffered tragedies in their families. I know this sounds a little selfish, but the ones that stick out the most to me are the ones that affected my own family.
True freedom, Luther discovered, is found in Jesus crucified who sets us free.
Over and over, generation after generation, sinners repeat the same mistake. "How is it possible that God can be a man," we ask.