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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The Sixth Sense is a suspenseful and scary movie where a little boy is born with the strange gift of seeing dead people.
Satan cannot stand the Gospel, and so he goes to work to undermine and render God’s Word an impotent and absurd message.
The wound on my hand would not let me forget what happened. The crackled and blistered strip of skin was a memento of the searing pain I felt that day. For the remainder of that year, I was constantly reminded of what I had done.
The Law though it does many things—restrains, exhorts the Christian unto righteousness, punishes—always rightly accuses and condemns sinners of their sin before a righteous, holy, and just God.
I hear voices in my head accusing me, telling me these sins will be there on the Day of Judgment unless I make atonement.
I spend a lot of time talking to people in coffee shops. Some share my Christian faith, some are exploring and questioning faith and others have left the church, having had a crisis of faith.
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
The sight of indulgences being bought and sold is just not something I witness on a regular basis.
We focus on what we have, what we don't have, and how and when God is going to give us what we need. This the opposite of faith.
One thing that makes John different than the other three Gospels is the absence of the Lord’s Supper.
Standing before Jesus is one of the cultural groups that the Lord sought fit to eradicate for their wickedness to preserve the line that would eventually birth Jesus.
Our Lord has told us not to make these fine distinctions in grades of sin.