Fulfillment can sound awkward as a title or name, but it is one of the most prominent proclamations concerning Christ found in the New Testament.
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.

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There he sat, awaiting his executioner. John looked around at what God and His Messiah were not doing, and even the greatest among those born of woman had his doubts. “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
Our actions, moral choices, appearance, definitions of family and friendship are all defined by how we see ourselves in relation to the question, "Am I good enough?"
The problem is not that we are unrepentant. The problem is our contrition is too small.
We might not appreciate that God chooses to save us by his word alone, but our discomfort doesn’t make the promise any less effective.
God comes to fix what is broken by being broken himself. He abolishes death by dying. He subsumes sin by being made sin itself.
Could it be that the root of not asking is not believing, either in the power, or worse, the graciousness of the Lord to address the issue that lies before us?
God invites us to have intimate conversations in a world filled with mockery and hate. To trust Jesus reigns whenever and wherever He extends a word of promise to the displaced and the disfavored, welcoming them home.
“I forgive you,” must be said and it must be said often in a marriage.
It is in the midst of a world marked by empty and deceptive hopes that have broken hearts and lives that we are sent to deliver the promise of a future that has as its last chapter the resurrection of the body to eternal life with the Lamb who was slain but is alive forevermore.
Jesus offer us this vision of violence not so we might be drawn into it but so we might be drawn through it to come closer to Him.
Where Erasmus saw fear and collapse, Luther saw the never-ending comfort of Christ and his gospel.
Through the means of grace, Christ grants us a share in all the blessings of this ancient hope.