A life of repentance embraces the ashes placed on our own foreheads and the coals we feel heaped upon our heads, for these ashes and coals bid us to join in the refreshment and restoration that comes on the road of repentance.

This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023). Now available for purchase.

This is an excerpt from “The Alien and the Proper: Luther's Two-Fold Righteousness in Controversy, Ministry, and Citizenship,” edited by Robert Kolb (1517 Publishing, 2023).

The sermon takes place in the context of a multi-facetted set of relationships experienced through the weeks and months of being together in congregation and community. Those relationships shape the credibility of the preacher in the pulpit. 

Whether or not there be grand thoughts behind a text, it is guaranteed that behind each text the Holy Spirit is lying in wait, and He is trying to enter into conversation with you.

The gospel of Jesus’ coming out of death and the tomb alive so that we might be restored to our identity as God’s children establishes the most enduring reality there is.

Belonging to Christ means we have a place where we fit, a resting place where we are at peace because we know our Lord accepts us as His own.

The dream of what might have been or what could possibly become reality diverts us from the sober assessment and the joyful appreciation of what God is giving us in this hour and this place.

It is precisely from the cross that the glory of God shines most brightly into our lives, as dark and sinister as Golgotha appears from a sinful distance. Cross trumps crisis.

Because Jesus has set us free, we enjoy a freedom of movement in His world, under His grace, that loosens our tongues to sing His praise.

Our Advent anticipation of the coming of the Savior to liberate us from sin and its wage of death, from the condemnation of God’s Law and the wrath of a loving heavenly Father, is indeed a daring and defiant stance.

Thanksgiving utters a confession of dependence, an acknowledgement of the gift of something not earned or deserved.