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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Jesus didn’t lie. He was called to preach to Israel. He would send His disciples out into the world. But that didn’t mean His message wasn’t for all.
Even a sinner who is crushed by the weight of her offenses, who feels in her bones the weight of judgment, shame, and doubt can expect to receive God's good word.
To see faith as a noun in Christianity, one must ask the question of what is faith and whence does it come?
Put to death by God's Word of Law, we are then raised to new life by God's Word of Gospel.
Quid pro quo, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. It tends to be the way we humans operate.
Have you ever wondered, of all the adjectives we could use to describe this day why in the world we chose the word “good?” Yeah, me too.
The story of Christ crucified has a happy ending. Jesus has conquered the grave. He beat the death rap.
If he was not flesh, who was hung on the cross? And if he was not God, who shook the earth from its foundations?
What is your fight club? Who is your Tyler Durden?
Apart from bare, naked faith in Jesus' atoning work for us, no sinner is, or ever can be, holy.
The God whose Spirit hovered over the face of the dark, formless, void waters of the infant creation, now walks upon the waters of the sea like a boss.
Sacrifice is the beating heart of the Scriptures, but also of our Christian faith.