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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The greatest, wisest, most mind-blowing teachers in the church are all dead. Yes, they’re fully alive with Christ, but for our purposes, they’re dead.
We are called to proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of the Answer incarnate, Jesus Christ, and in love respond to the questions that inevitably arise against it.
When we focus on God's self-giving Word, when we turn our attention to Golgotha, we are shown a wholly different way of viewing the Commandments.
There is just something about the idea of not being ‘under Law’ that sets off all kinds of alarms in the minds of many Christians.
Because of Jesus, we don’t have to pretty up anything ugly thing in life.
His consolation will accompany us in the midst of sickness and death. He will strengthen us, even strengthen us to carry the cross of old age.
Come to the feast where evil and good, wise and foolish, shameful and shaming are welcomed as citizens of the kingdom.
So, on this Good Friday, our sinful self and all our sins rest with Jesus here in His tomb. Our transgressions are fully atoned.
At Golgotha, Jesus saves us from sin by becoming sin for us. Jesus takes all our messes, all our shame, all our guilt, all our fears and insecurities and He allows them to kill Him instead of us.
Jesus’ death was a direct fulfillment of the will of His Father as promised in the Scriptures.
Jesus was praying a Psalm. Psalm 22 to be precise, and both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark relay the story to us of Jesus praying that Psalm on the cross at the hour of His death.
Through this promise, God does not let us escape death because in and through Jesus He overcame death.