When we consider our own end, it will not bring us into a final wrestling match with the messenger of God, but into the embrace of the Messiah of God.
What do such callings look like? They are ordinary and everyday.
This is the third in a series meant to let the Christian tradition speak for itself, the way it has carried Christians through long winters, confusion, and joy for centuries.

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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).
Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
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.
Hains offers a novel yet simple contention: Luther is most catholic where he is boldest.
In whatever direction the bias of men might be, from thence he might recall them, and teach them of his own true Father, as he himself says: I came to save and to find that which was lost.
When and how did the church start this season of anticipation?
For Christians, Advent is the time when the Church patiently prepares for the coming of the Great King, Jesus the Christ.
The Church stands firm on the word of promise that Christ will one day return to change what we know by faith into sight.
The epistle text from Colossians 1 declares how the great drama of redemption and human history ends.
We look forward to the return of Christ, which fills us with hope that there really is an end to this marathon called life.
As the church year ends, we are not give a vision of Jesus on His throne, ruling over a new creation. Instead, we see Jesus ruling from the cross. His grace comes in the midst of suffering and pain.
The Gospel outpaces all would-be and eventually fleeting identity-makers and brings in the truth of a renewed-in-Christ humanity.