Forgiveness from Jesus is always surprising to us.
The Christ who rescues does not wait for you to be clean. He comes to clean you. He does not need your strength. He brings his own.
When you remember your baptism, you're not recalling a ritual. You're standing under a current of divine action that has not ceased to flow since the moment those baptismal waters hit your skin.

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The absolute best part of Christmas is that it is not flat at all, but in fact, it is very tall.
At the center of this gospel reading is a conversation. It was of the memorable variety. It involved a peasant girl from a small town and a mighty messenger from God.
This is Christmas. It is Jesus becoming all sin from generation to generation.
Praying this prayer every day reveals this painful truth, I am guilty in need of forgiveness every day.
It turns out the family trait of not being able to wait runs deep and wide in the family of God. We do foolish things while we wait for promises to be fulfilled.
Christ urges us to love our neighbor as He loved us, forgiving all of their sins - giving them the absolving, shirt-pulling, embrace that we would also want.
We do not believe that the virgin mother bore a son and that he is the Lord and Savior unless I believe the second thing, that he is my Savior and Lord.
He assumed the weakest form to do his greatest work.
God sent his Son down into the hidden places of our dark and dirty world to find us, and to the cross to wipe away our sins forever. That is what this story is all about.
It's not always the giants, the obvious enemies, the clear battlefields that prove most exhausting and dangerous for us. It’s the ongoing, subtle, seductive, soul-gnawing smaller things in life that wear us down. What's a person to do?
Many of us have experienced what it feels like to wait and to remain patient this year. This Advent, we are reminded of how the saints before us experienced similar feelings of uncertainty, need, and hopeful expectation as they awaited - both faithfully and unfaithfully - for God to fulfill his promises.
Jesus does not seek out Peter to condemn, but to restore his precious lost sheep, His dearly loved prodigal son.