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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Even as children of God, we have down days. That’s just a fact of being sinful and living in an evil world.
Two things are ultimately certain in life, and they are not death and taxes. It is Jesus’ return and the preservation of His people until that day.
Isaiah first reminds the people of who they are and then tells them why they are who they are; to bring the teachings and promises of the LORD to all people.
Only when we stand where God has located Himself for us do we find an imperishable promise.
Jesus continues to breathe His gifts on His beloved. He continues to breathe absolution upon sinners like me and you, He continues to fill us with the Holy Spirit and all His comfort.
Jesus is our confidence because he reveals truth from falsehood, right from wrong, and reality from appearance, so that we may rely on him for our every need of body, soul, and mind.
This week’s miracle invites you to engage in an honest consideration of something pressing for every believer at some time in their lives: God’s silence.
The scandal of this text for the Jewish people is the inclusion of all nations and peoples into the Holy House of the LORD.
There is a power that is stronger and mightier than the power of separation in death. And that power is the power of God’s love for you and me.
Miracles, for all their wonder and encouragement, rely on the dazzling of our senses to work. Because miracle-faith produces sensory-faith, it is of a poor quality.
It is important to see how the LORD does NOT answer the questions Job and his friends have been wrestling with.
If the feeding of the 5000 invited an emphasis on Jesus’ COMPASSION, this week’s miracle invites a sermon focused on Jesus’ AUTHORITY.