Forgiveness from Jesus is always surprising to us.
The Christ who rescues does not wait for you to be clean. He comes to clean you. He does not need your strength. He brings his own.
When you remember your baptism, you're not recalling a ritual. You're standing under a current of divine action that has not ceased to flow since the moment those baptismal waters hit your skin.

All Articles

“Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.”
The Gospels function like literary essays, composed with a specific thesis and purpose in mind. Each account of Jesus’s life acts as a treatise to show us something about the person and work of the Savior.
In Christ Jesus, through faith, we’ve received everything we need for our bodies and lives, and life eternal.
These words not only rescue and defend; they also attack.
I rededicated my life as many times as I could when the guilt was unbearable. I would read my Bible more and pray more, yet I still struggled. I knew deep down, I was breaking God’s heart with my failure at being his child.
Jesus’ miracle in this sermon, then, is a type of the compassion He has for your hearers. While they certainly have many physical needs, your hearers also (more fundamentally) need Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness.
The lifeblood of Christ is the treasury that defines personal worth – your worth, my worth. Preach that; the price tag on your soul.
This food, already purchased and freely given in our pericope, is a foretaste of the feast to come as well; the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom which has no end.
He is our gold. He is our pure garment. He is our healing. He is our sanity. He is our wholeness.
There is no comfort in naked sovereignty. A bully may be said to be “sovereign” over the elementary school playground, but that doesn’t bring much comfort nor does it promise security. We need something more than a God who is in control.
It is one thing to pray against death’s slow and aggressive assault on God’s creation. It is another to trust in the one who has conquered the grave.
To dwell with a Holy God in their camp, Israel lead holy lives. Anything standing in the way of and threatening this holy relationship must be avoided or eliminated.