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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I spend a lot of time talking to people in coffee shops. Some share my Christian faith, some are exploring and questioning faith and others have left the church, having had a crisis of faith.
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
As the devil awakens after a long slumber, recovering from the resurrection event, he finds his shackles loosened and the glorious screams of torment throughout his dark empire
Desiderius Erasmus and many humanists had for a while held out hope for Luther’s call for reform and many of the reformers were themselves, to some degree, humanists.
Christ is the answer to both the Who and the how of our extra nos salvation.
We sinners share a common problem when it comes to Jesus’ parables. We read them with an eye to our own righteousness.
The accusations of the voices we hear on a daily basis are deafening. There is no shortage of voices that will remind us of our failures.
I walk in the local mall for exercise several times a week. I purposely avoid weekends and hours when the mall is likely to be crowded because, while I am not a racewalker, I do like to keep up a steady pace as opposed to stopping, starting and inching and this is difficult to achieve even when there are few people around.
Just when we think we had it all under control, Christ breaks into the midst of our futile efforts to save ourselves.
Ultimately, however, we find in the Heidelberg Disputation the root and core of Luther’s theology, which he would build and expound upon throughout his life.
“My Old Man” is the story of a single father, a grossly flawed character, told through the eyes of his son who can’t help but love him.
In Christ we are already dead to sin and the eternal consequences of sin. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul (Romans 8:1).