The women at the tomb were surprised by Easter. Amazed and filled with wonder at Jesus' Easter eucatastrophe. And so are we.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer to the Christian Life (1517 Publishing, 2025). Sinner Saint is available today from 1517 Publishing.
On its journey from Byzantium to Constantinople to Istanbul, this special place helps us understand the broader arc of Christian history, which goes on until Christ's return.

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Paul says he would inherit the entire world, not merely a little plot of land between Egypt and Syria. This is what God is after in the Messiah: All people and the entire Earth.
Jesus promises to work for you, forgiving your sins, but He also promises to work through you, forming you into a witness to the world.
For what end does the Law exist? The Law exposes us so that we might find the remedy in the person and work of Jesus.
This misunderstood story is not a moralistic tale about bald prophets and child-eating bears, designed to teach youths to honor their elders and preachers. Rather, it's a brief glimpse into the age-old war that began in a garden and ended at an empty tomb.
Sometimes we have to strain hard to hear words deeper than our hearts. Words not from inside, but outside. Words from God, not our own self-spun narratives.
We all share a common hope. The same hope that converted Augustine, drove Martin Luther out of the monastery and calls horrible sinners to new life every day.
But this is not a story of Jesus being taken many places. This is a story of Jesus remaining in one place and deepening in His love of the Spirit and the Father.
The Seed of the woman is he who will crush the head of the evil one and restore man to a right and proper relationship with God.
Though not without his faults, Anselm of Canterbury is unquestionably one of the great theologians of the last millennium.
When Jesus preaches the gospel, he is preaching himself. Jesus’s good news is the good news about himself.
Transfiguration is like a farewell party for a dear friend drafted and going off to war. We celebrate all that has brought us there, we rejoice in our friend, and yet we know we are sending him off to great danger.
We're ALL sinners in need of a Savior. We're all saints whose Savior forgives ALL our sin. We're all the same in relation to Christ crucified for the sin of the world.