This is an excerpt from Remembering Your Baptism: A Sinner Saint Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2025) by Kathy Morales, pgs 74-77.
“The Church exists to tell anyone and everyone who knocks on her door wondering what’s inside: Come and see” (pg. 58). Such reminders make The Church a worthwhile read.
The way of the cross is the actual way of victory. Jesus absorbs the worst of what humanity and even the devil can do to him, and he spurns the shame of it all.

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This creed is no mere squabble over words. Salvation is on the line.
[This text] describes a journey to a foreign region where Jesus engages in a confrontational conversation with a legion of demons, performs a violent and scandalous exorcism, and leaves behind a community gripped by terror. Apparently, the only thing more frightening than a naked, graveyard-dwelling demoniac is this visitor from Nazareth who reigns over everything.
Baptism demolishes all boasting, for it is passively received and all that is received is pure gift. No one can, therefore, boast a better salvation than another.
Naturally each individual forgets the beam in his own eye and perceives only the mote in his neighbor’s. One will not bear with the faults of the other; each requires perfection of his fellow.
On Holy Trinity Sunday, God draws our attention, not to the inner workings of the Trinity, but the outer workings of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit gathers us together and keeps the church in the true faith, and He does it all by way of the Gospel.
While the Holy Spirit does work within us, He always comes to us from the outside, through the external Word and Sacraments.
The following is an excerpt from “A Year of Grace: Collected Sermons of Advent through Pentecost” written by Bo Giertz and translated by Bror Erickson (1517 Publishing, 2019).
While most of his letters were written as semi-private counsel and consolation, some, like the “Letter to the Christians of Miltenburg” were written openly for public consumption.
Because of the ascension, the manger has become the cosmos.
Thomas was without a doubt a skeptic. And he was a skeptic without a doubt.
With this declaration of peace, Jesus was telling His disciples, ‘Because I died for you, you are now justified.’