Was Jesus ambitious or unambitious? We have to say that the answer is…yes.
It is death that deserves derision, not the disciple who reaches through sorrow for his Lord.
Illness is not romantic. It is not a test, a metaphor, nor a blessing in disguise.

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This is the Christian word: grace. Such grace is found only with this Lamb who is also our Shepherd.
Jesus cries on the cross for us. He suffers and cries and dies in our place. He is forsaken by his father so we don’t have to be.
The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
Unprompted, without any warning, for no reason at all, without any instigation say, "I love you." And that will wash over your parents like a beautiful absolution.
His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
Rightly distinguishing between law and gospel, as Paul helps us see in 2 Corinthians 3, is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.
God gives us the power and authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to burdened sinners who entrust us with their pain, guilt, and defeat.
The law had to have its way with the expert to bring him around (and back) to Abraham's response.
Maybe, just maybe, our goal for 2023 should not be to live more but to die more.
That is the task of preaching in these last weeks of the Church Year, to enable the people given to our care, to praise God from the perspective of the end when our Lord will return in glory bringing us into His Kingdom of glory.