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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There he sat, awaiting his executioner. John looked around at what God and His Messiah were not doing, and even the greatest among those born of woman had his doubts. “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
I can only disbelieve you or believe you. If I disbelieve you, I go on being a miserable bore.
Isaiah 11:1-10 provides us with an Advent text capturing the beauty, excitement and reality of both the first coming of the Messiah and the second coming.
The problem is not that we are unrepentant. The problem is our contrition is too small.
Isaiah 2:1-5... is a beautiful eschatological prophecy focusing on the era of peace that comes along with the coming of the LORD.
In many ways [this text] brings to mind Judgement Day and the separation of the sheep from the goats when Christ the King comes to take His treasured possession home to be with Him in the courts of everlasting life.
God invites us to have intimate conversations in a world filled with mockery and hate. To trust Jesus reigns whenever and wherever He extends a word of promise to the displaced and the disfavored, welcoming them home.
These last words of the Old Testament Scriptures prepare us for the incarnation and beyond.
Jesus offer us this vision of violence not so we might be drawn into it but so we might be drawn through it to come closer to Him.
Note Moses’ big question is, “Who am I?” However, this is the wrong question. It matters not who Moses is, or who we are. What matters is who God is.
If the resurrection were just a repetition of this world, then it would be ridiculous, indeed. But the resurrection is different. It is a world without death.
We would be utterly miserable if we could not find somebody less than ourselves, somebody to look down on, somebody to make us more pleased with ourselves.