American religion did not become optional because the gospel failed. It became optional because religion slowly redefined itself around usefulness.
The Passover wasn’t just Israel’s story; it’s ours.
God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.

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Maundy Thursday is only the beginning of the long, grievous road Jesus must take before “it is finished” three days later.
Season eight of the Game of Thrones has begun. It's the long-awaited finale, the end of the story we have all long been eagerly waiting for even as we fear the impending winter.
How are things at your church? Are people getting saved in droves, are there mass baptisms every Sunday, is giving at an all-time high, and are your members model citizens and pillars of the community?
When Lamech named his newborn son Noah—which means “rest”—he said, “This one shall give us comfort from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed”
As preachers approach Holy Week, it is sometimes difficult to plan ahead. With a number of sermons to prepare, it can sometimes feel like you’re just trying to keep your head above water, say whatever the given text says for that service, and move on preparing the next.
In Luke 24:1-12 we don’t get a carefully constructed theology of the resurrection. The evangelist doesn’t work out all the implications of Easter for our life and faith. He doesn’t offer a logical argument for why we should believe Jesus rose physically from the dead. Instead, he simply describes what happened.
Being a member of a church connects people to the whole reason the church has for existing: that we might obtain justifying faith in Jesus Christ through Word and Sacrament.
You have heard that after his sufferings and death Christ our Lord arose from the dead and entered upon, and was enthroned in, an immortal existence.
The Gospel restores us to our true humanity, embeds us in the body of Christ, feeds us with Christ’s own body, and offers us a community.
It is an ineffable mystery that God suffers, and our preaching must bear out that mystery. One can only emphasize that God is truly man and that God suffers and dies on account of the personal union. But we do not emphasize the suffering apart from the divine nature, or as if the divine nature was not fully His at particular moments. The personal union causes us to deal with the whole Christ.
It’s the following that caught my attention this week. It seems especially appropriate to consider this Sunday, for Holy Week is designed to help Christians follow Jesus through his last and consequential days.
When we preach Jesus crucified for the sin of the world, Jesus crucified to put away God’s harsh judgment, that good news creates faith