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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We are all sojourners in a perilous cosmos, what is sometimes conceptualized as the theology of the pilgrim.
Above all, Luther understood the importance of the Biblical narrative as the story of God’s love and man’s salvation revealed in Christ Crucified.
Over the last few weeks it’s been painful and disappointing to hear the stories of victims that have been abused and assaulted by powerful celebrities, executives, and politicians.
“Obey God and he will bless you,” says the wind and the reed is bent over and bruised throughout. “God will never stop loving you but you can disappoint him,” says the wind and the once lit candle is now a sad smoldering wick.
History was one of dad’s favorite subjects and he shared his knowledge with infectious enthusiasm.
For since it was not enough that the Lord of heaven and earth hung on our every word, the Word came down from heaven and hung upon the cross.
The devil tempts us to hope in things that we can do.
We just finished celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
What is it to be an heir of the Reformation? It is to look outward to Christ bleeding and dying on the cross as Great Rescuer of sinners—of me.
Whether we realize it or not, all these online, self-editing actions are nothing more than our admission that we believe that we are so deeply flawed that no one will love us just as we are.
The Lutheran Reformation was a reformation of the Christian imagination alongside its theology.
We’re by nature counters. So long as we can add, subtract, multiply and divide something, anything, we have some measure of control and comparison.