New Lutheran Quote of the Day

The prison of our mortal constructions, our ways of figuring things out, our ways of making ourselves big, defensed, and secure, our termination, our death.  He enters them all.  Jesus dies our death for us, the death that terminates the loving, giving life that flows from generous God.  He bears our separation from God.  Jesus suffers our hell, but hell and death cannot hold Him, for He never said yes to them.  He did not sin.  The sinless one takes what was coming to us by our sin.  Jesus takes sin's claim on us and suffers it through.  For on Him sin had no claim.  Because of Jesus' taking it, sin can no more make a claim on us.  We are liberated from its claim and dominion, its death that we willed with our sin. -- Dr. Norman Nagel, Selected Sermons, p. 276.