Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

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You are the baptized, for in Christ we are all wet. The demographic dividers are washed away.
The seemingly small, the particular, the previously overlooked, magnifies in importance.
We can interpret "be the Church" as either law or gospel.
God gives his church a story that helps to make sense of this life.
It would serve us well to embrace the beauty of our diversity within the unity of the body of Christ.
We must also address the stigma surrounding addiction within so many churches.
It is of the utmost importance that pastors teach their congregation that through faith in Jesus Christ, they are fortified against the machinations of the adversary.
God comes to us through the flesh and blood and spirit of Christ precisely where he promised to be manifest to us and for us.
I’ve experienced firsthand the promise that God never leaves a congregation empty-handed.
The only place to begin a discussion of human/creaturely identity is with our relationship to the God whose breath filled dust, brought us to life, sustains us and gives us a hopeful future.
A pastor is sent to proclaim the unconditional grace of God, reminding us again and again that it is our Heavenly Father who reaches out to us in love through his Christ-won forgiveness, and not the other way around.
Only the resurrection of Jesus guarantees and facilitates divine presence and love to us as divine life for us.