God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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My Grandmother recently lost a long battle with cancer. Her name was Joy, and a name has never been more fitting.
We need a God who can heal us of true guilt and false guilt. We need a Christ who not only removes the shame we feel for what we’ve done, but who washes away the shame that others have smeared upon us.
Exemplified here are two misunderstandings about the forgiveness and graciousness of God among some Christians.
Our Father works through us to meet the needs of others and to meet our need for Savior Jesus.
Jesus is the end of religion.
We have to endure darkness before we’re ready for the light again. God is doing what he does best: he’s conforming us to his Son, to Jesus, who was buried in the darkness and rose again into the light on Easter.
What did Christians do, both when they encountered a Rome in its glory, as when Christ was born, and in it decline, as when Constantine tried to pull stuff back together?
If there is no resurrection, then we have no true hope, and the arts above all vocations would be the folly of follies.
In an age when families are already fractured beyond comprehension, are we seriously going to separate parents from children in the one service in which God himself is present to unite us to himself and one another?
Give us eyes to see the face of Jesus in that little child wriggling in front of us, tugging at his mom’s sleeve, wanting a drink of water.
A good place to start is to work hard at loving those no one else seems to love. I can’t think of a more Christ-like action.
This reflection was adapted from Sexy: The Quest for Erotic Virtue in Perplexing Times (1517 Publishing, 2017).