When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.
The life we are trying to manage, improve, and secure is not something to be mastered. It is something to be surrendered. And this is where everything changes. Because in Christ, the approval we are seeking has already been spoken.
It is within this charged atmosphere that Luther’s writings take on their full significance. His responses to the Turkish threat were not merely reactions to military events; they were rooted in a deep theological reflection on the nature of God’s rule over the world, the responsibilities of Christian rulers, and the role of the Church in times of crisis.

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Let him feel the heft of stone cradled in his palm, and consider the gravity of guilt cast upon the hypocrite.
When Jesus was baptized, his Father’s voice fell from heaven, proclaiming, “You are my beloved Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,” (Mk 1:11). But there in the wilderness it did not seem so, did it?
If I am so bound up in the history of the first man, all the way back at the dawn of creation, how can I not also be bound up in the more recent history of my family?
I didn’t pray for forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, or world peace. All this ten-year-old wanted was a badger. So that’s what I asked for.
A few people can endure a Job-like hell, get up, bless God, and face the future stronger than ever. Most of us aren’t such saints. We hobble along, half-walking, half-crawling into the will-be from the what-was.
Our hearts are half Amish at times, hankering to live in the past, for we dislike the present or fear the future. But therein lies a grave danger, for nostalgia can easily become the gateway drug to despair.