God can handle grief, rage, and cries for justice. God can handle the victim who cannot yet forgive. God can handle the prayer that comes out jagged and wounded. The good news is that God is holy and merciful enough to handle all our prayers.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
Jesus offers something infinitely better. He tells us to put down our gavel—not because sin isn't real, but because the only Judge who has the right to condemn is the very One who was condemned for us.

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God is for us in His foolish, scarred Word and Wisdom. Nothing is against us, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
We all look forward to Lent’s conclusion and the celebration of Resurrection Sunday. This is the Sunday of victory and joy as the Church enters into the reality that Christ has defeated death and hell, declared victory over such enemies and set history on its final course of consummation.
How does that sit with you? It frightens me. Naked, exposed in the eyes of the One to Whom I must give account?
As sinful humans, we are adept at taking what God gives as gift and making it into a work. Nowhere is this made more evident than in the universally misunderstood doctrine of sanctification.
“Church is set free in Christ, in short, to revel in her irrelevance to the ways of the world’s power and wisdom.
That is why the church has to offer Super Bread and Super Wine, so that God can see that we are Super Christians.
God has given us a way out of our plight of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” It is the way of the cross.
Today I want to give you some good news. It is good news for the relationship failure; for the one who is self-focused;
Gone, abolished, put away with, undone, and destroyed are any and all notions that my repentance unlocks, sets free, or earns God’s forgiveness.
Neither did Christ’s absolution “run out” nor “reach a limit” due to Judas’ sin.
No matter how great our efforts or how righteous our intent, we will go from troubled to scared, and scared to terrified, unless we are sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb.
“In a culture that promotes self-interest, children in church learn that something much bigger and more important than themselves is going on in their midst."