In an autobiographical telling, Gretchen Ronnevik shares the fate of two different fathers and the hope she has in Christ.

In our attempts to flee from our fears and escape death, we will become imprisoned by them.

The people should find their lives in your sermon, and no one’s life is unaffected by the coronavirus right now. It is the very fact that I can make such a blanket statement, free of all caveats, which makes it so necessary for us to preach on it.

Is there, or should there be, a Christian response to COVID-19? I think the answer is yes, but not in the sense that Christians have a silver bullet or cure. Christianity and Christians do, however, have something to offer the world in an era of uncertainty. They have the sure promises of Christ.

Into our world of sin, broken hearts, physical ailments, and psychological suffering, our Lord of grace descended.

Your faith is not dependent on whether or not you suffer well. Your faith is dependent on the fact that Christ did.

Our past, present, and future receive healing from Jesus’ wounds.

As usual, Luther took what he received and turned it inside-out, so that it shifted from a series of demands and became a bestowal of God’s gracious promise.

Scripture is clear: God’s Spirit pursues sinners from conception to the grave with his life-giving Gospel and gifts.

Jesus’ forgiveness will not collapse. Jesus’ forgiveness will take us places our legs can’t take us.

This Jesus healed the blind and the lame and the mute and the barren and raised the dead.

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.