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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It's easy to become habituated to sin. It comes naturally, after all. The power and pressure of sin on us, from conception to the grave, is immense.
There is a difference between preaching about Christ and preaching Christ.
A Roman execution device isn't exactly a picturesque scene of divine love on display.
Out of His mind indeed, as He took our place between murderers and received the insults and torture of humanity.
When it comes to this world, our beds are most often a mess even when we do our best to make them in the morning.
There in that moment, the waters of baptism reached down deep into the forsaken path of the grave with a man whose body and mind could no longer hold onto any reality otherwise.
For most of my Christian experience I was taught and I taught others that church was primarily a place to go to serve, to use your gifts, to bless others.
The Gospel predominates when hearers receive the saving gifts of Christ as God’s final word to them.
In Martin Luther's Small Catechism he borrows a line from St. Augustine about what defines a "god."
Bring your black eyes and bruised hearts. Bring your criminal records and soiled pasts. Bring your same sex attraction and internet history. Jesus isn't afraid of your sin or your righteousness.
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.