This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
That on Pentecost God’s Spirit should function through a dozen seeming inebriates should be no surprise when this same God saves through the ignominy of the cross.
The point Luther made, again and again, was that distance between God and sinners is collapsed when the crucified Christ himself comes to sinners through a preacher.
When Luther was in the pulpit, he was teaching, and when he was in the lecture hall at the podium, he was preaching. Linebaugh’s outstanding book will help contemporary pastors to do the same.