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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In Luke 24:1-12 we don’t get a carefully constructed theology of the resurrection. The evangelist doesn’t work out all the implications of Easter for our life and faith. He doesn’t offer a logical argument for why we should believe Jesus rose physically from the dead. Instead, he simply describes what happened.
Martin Luther knew something about economics. Well, God’s economics anyway.
Lenten meditation is the one time Luther might advise us to be turning in on ourselves--and taking a cold, honest glance. For only in the shadow of the Cross can we look honsetly into the cause of the death of the man from Nazareth, the second person of the Trinity.
Americans love the vicarious sense of pride they get from the odds-defying underdog myth.
The Scriptural pictures of atonement offer every Christian comfort and hope against sin through the power of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
There have been so many times in my life where I have thought to myself; God isn't paying any attention to me. He doesn't care what I do down here on this inconsequential planet in the middle of the huge universe He controls.
Jesus is the heart of the Gospel, and the Gospel is Good News. But it is always Good News that comes to us best on the lips of another.
Each of these little epiphanies in Middle-earth are like the star the magi saw arise in the sky, a light that reflects and points to Jesus who is the Light of the world.
When bishops err we must not follow...We must obey God before man.
Christmas wrecks all attempts to penetrate God's hiddenness and seek him out in Heaven. He comes to us clothed in our humanity.
No doubt a few preachers cringe at the thought of "C and E" (Christmas and Easter) Christians showing up for Christmas Eve services...I must confess, when I preach on Christmas and Easter, I do not share this sentiment held by some of my peers.
This blog is a part of our Advent series on the hope we find in, through and given by Christ. Each week’s installment will look at hope from a different perspective with special emphasis on corresponding passages of Scripture.