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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What happens when our children are taught to read the Scriptures as evidence that God is a heavenly Santa Claus? When happens when they think God rewards or punishes them depending on whether they've been naughty or nice?
Christian freedom and Christian love go together in a most wonderful way.
The Devil cultivates fear of God and promotes motivation and zeal for outward works and earthly virtue out of pure eternal self-concern.
The devil tempts us to hope in things that we can do.
We just finished celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
What is it to be an heir of the Reformation? It is to look outward to Christ bleeding and dying on the cross as Great Rescuer of sinners—of me.
When I was about 10, I went on a hike with a boys brigade. We were all racing down this path at lunchtime when I decided to beat everyone to the bottom by deviating from the path.
The Lutheran Reformation was a reformation of the Christian imagination alongside its theology.
In Christ we are freed to be for our neighbor without fear of sin and damnation falling upon us.
So bondage meets freedom, and God becomes our Master through Christ.
My parents will be the first to tell you, I can really put my foot in my mouth. I often don’t say the right thing.
Rather than presenting Christ’s words as a rule or a threat, Luther reveals it to be the promise of God.