One great thing about our post-denominational age is that it has opened up opportunities to make common cause with other Lutherans who, despite their differences and eccentricities, can agree on some of the most important things.
Pride builds identities that leave no room for grace.
We can willingly admit the fact that we're just like tax collectors and thieves.

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In his last novel, Islands in the Stream, Hemingway shows us what we get when we look to nature for ultimate truth: death.
I am told that it is preposterous and wicked to call the Son of God a cursed sinner. I answer: If you deny that He is a condemned sinner, you are forced to deny that Christ died.
What we can learn from all these instances is that we are all born into this world with a pre-existing condition. It’s called mortality, and no earthly authority or expert can save us from it.
Jesus has conquered; he who has an ear let him hear. There is nothing to run from, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear because the Lamb of God has done it all.
When we try to create meaning for our lives or transform Jesus into a mere example, the Holy Spirit comes to us, with a preacher in hand, ready to unleash a sermon like Louis Armstrong blasting out "When The Saints Go Marching In" on his trumpet.
How we feel is so often conditioned upon what we are experiencing. Faith grabs hold of something outside our experience, something objective and true that is not changed by circumstance.
This love story goes on and on, from the beginning of time. Every retelling of this incredible story reveals a little more, exposing our inadequacy, producing more devotion, capturing unspoken emotion, inspiring us to a greater love.
We look for Jesus in all the wrong places because we are looking to glorify ourselves, to reinforce what we already believe to be true, to validate ourselves. But the glorification of Jesus is found in the last place we would ever look, the cross.
Jesus wouldn't allow religious people to determine his identity, define his mission, or put him in a safe, predictable religious box.
Jesus reminds us of God’s mercy to the helpless, snakebitten children of Israel, then connects that story to him being lifted up on a cross to rescue an entire human race that is snakebitten by sin.
Many Christians are walking on eggshells, living as if we are sinners in the hands of an angry God. Which begs the question: Is he? Is God angry with us?
Jesus is the continual unending fountain humanity desperately needs. And yet, here at the cross Jesus the Living Water is humiliated to the point where He cries out, “I thirst.”