On Maundy Thursday, Christ explicitly gave his disciples the new command from which the day takes its name, for the Latin words novum mandatum are the Vulgate’s translation of “new command.”
Spy Wednesday asks us to look inward. It's the day the liturgical calendar acknowledges what we already know: we are not the best version of ourselves.
“Save us!” or “Deliver us!” That’s what “Hosanna” means. And that is exactly what Jesus did in the ER that dark Thanksgiving Day and every day for me.

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Sunday morning is about receiving, not giving.
This is an excerpt from part two of “On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service” by Mike Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023).
This is an excerpt from the prologue of “On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service” by Mike Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023).
This is an excerpt from the introduction of “Common Places in Christian Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly,” edited by Mark Mattes (1517 Publishing, 2023).
We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
The hardest thing you and I will ever be called to do is to believe that it is done already, that it really and truly is finished.
If you interpret James, as most do, as an encouragement toward proving your faith by your works and then say it is your "favorite" then you are proclaiming that your favorite thing about the Christian faith is the practical outworking, the proving your faith by your works.
A Christian is a man who desires to enter heaven not through his own goodness and works, but through the righteousness and works of Christ.
To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
We too are God’s baptized, beloved, blood-bought believers. And no one can ever take that away from us.
The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023). Now available for purchase.