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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Jesus is not celebrating diversity or difference. He is promising sameness. Redundancy. A repeat of what has happened before.
The Word was preached into your ears, the Holy Spirit worked through that word, and wormed His way from the sinful preacher's mouth to your wicked ears and onto your sinful heart.
While faith forms the relationship with God and love the relationship with the neighbor, hope forms the Christian’s relationship with the future.
The Easter season is designed to cultivate our resurrection thinking throughout the year. When God looks at us each day, He sees us through the lens of Christ’s resurrection. We should look at our lives the same way.
Jesus sees His disciples facing future uncertainty and responds not with details about dates and times and procedures to follow, but with His promise and His presence.
There is a question often raised by Christians and even some theologians that is unanswerable: Why are some saved, and others are lost? While it might seem to be a good question, it is not. Let’s examine it more closely.
We have one thing which will never change. We have a shepherd who knows us by name and who promises to speak to us in all of life’s situations.
This gospel is not like all other human acts of gift-giving. It doesn’t come with the expectation of a gift in return. His mercy is an unreturned gift.
"As we stare down another day, the struggles and joys that it will bring, take a deep breath. In spite of all the failures, floundering, and “that-should-have-been-something’s” flying in our faces, there is peace and redemption in Jesus." Tara Flattley
Spoiler alert! Jesus rose from the grave with the assurance that all believers will rise bodily with Him on the Last Day. And truth be told, Easter wasn't the first spoiler.
Today, by faith, we live free from condemnation, free from the fear of death, free from all slander the devil could whisper and scatter about us. In Him we have a new family, the family of the forgiven.
The life of holiness will overtake the world on the last day. Practice living in the coming world now.