Worship never existed as escape from the world, but preparation for life within it.
For many years, I held piety as my god.
The reasoning was always the same. The gods were angry. The gods were hungry. The gods required payment.

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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.
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 sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.
Fullness, truth, reality – all this God gives us as his gift in Christ.
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.
All our sin and shame is answered for in the death and resurrection of our Lord.