You'd think that killing people would make them like you? This week, in preparation for the HWSS Conference, Gillespie and Riley jump into On Being a Theologian of the Cross, by Gerhard Forde. Why did Luther say, "The cross alone is our theology" and what are the consequences for Christians in every generation?

There in that moment, the waters of baptism reached down deep into the forsaken path of the grave with a man whose body and mind could no longer hold onto any reality otherwise.

We are called to proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of the Answer incarnate, Jesus Christ, and in love respond to the questions that inevitably arise against it.

How does that sit with you? It frightens me. Naked, exposed in the eyes of the One to Whom I must give account?

There’s something very attractive about both the cross-ladder and the cross-crutches. In fact, there’s something about both of them that the woodworker within us finds eminently more appealing than the simple cross of Jesus.

Every age gives cause for both hopefulness and despair.

If it's not Christ Jesus "for you" they're not delivering the Gospel to you.

You are God’s people. Yet you are nothing in the world’s sight. To be honest, often less than nothing. Don’t feel bad, I’m nothing with you.

If he was not flesh, who was hung on the cross? And if he was not God, who shook the earth from its foundations?

But when God's Word of Law and Gospel are tuned up, when they're properly distinguished, then Jesus' words rain down on us like thunderbolts.

He barely wakes to find himself nearly dead; even so, he can’t feel a thing.

No, when the Lord is ready for battle, of all creatures, he commissions Mary’s little lamb.