1. Being the baptized just may be the last, great resistance.
  2. Our comfort in this seemingly endless age of crisis after crisis is the inexhaustible hope of Jesus’s reversal.
  3. Faith is like a horse with blinders because it only beholds God’s promise. It is obsessed with what God has already said.
  4. The Trinity is a handy shorthand for all that God has done to justify sinners.
  5. After the big, splashy, exciting day of Pentecost in Acts 2, church life faded into the ordinary life of ragtag sinners encountering the God of the cross coming to them in seemingly unawesome ways. What can we learn from this?
  6. That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.
  7. Just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, so we, through the working of the Holy Spirit, recognize our Lord in the Word and Sacraments.
  8. Darkness is not your only friend. Jesus loves you, and he will be with you.
  9. Every part of Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene in John 20 was incredibly intentional and personal for God to systematically redeem what was lost.
  10. Free-range Christ is fearful Christ because he is present, speaking, and I just crucified him.
  11. Sometimes loss is gain. Sometimes defeat is victory. Sometimes weakness is strength. Sometimes death is life. Sometimes, that is, when Christ is at the center, on his cross and not in his tomb.
  12. God has found a way to be God even for the likes of us. He has found a way to save sinners.