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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When Jesus appeared again to his disciples on that first Easter evening and again a week later with Thomas and the Emmaus disciples, what did Jesus show them? His hands.
Heaven is yours now.
This day and its meaning provided the opportunity for an anonymous author to write a poem for Sheer Thursday about Judas' betrayal of Jesus.
He represents our likeness, fulfills it, and so has the prerogative to reproduce his likeness in us.
Sin is a heavy thing to bear. Its jacket is shame, its medals are guilt.
The love of God in Christ Jesus never changes. That love is for you.
Jesus has gone ahead of you on the road, and promises to be with you still.
We are not pursuing dragons; we are the dragons. We are, all of us, Eustace Scrubb.
This is the sound of freedom. The Eternal One died so that we who are dying might live eternally with him.
A truly Lenten mindset sees the season as preparatory for the resurrection life of Easter as opposed to the mortification of Good Friday.
He declared you what you might not always feel you are, but what you were from the moment he knew you, before you were you, when he foreknew you.
Your champion steps forward.