Reconciliation with God affirms the worth of our persons, and it banishes the inhibitions and fears, as well as the resentments and desire for revenge, which create gulches between us and those around us.
Forgiveness is ours, Luther continually proclaimed, because Christ has put His claim on our sins and taken them as His own to the Cross and into His tomb.
This restoration to righteousness that results in our freedom for loving and supporting other people whom God places within our reach takes place, Luther believed, through Christ’s liberating victory over Satan.
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.
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.
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.