Christianity is NOT a religion; it is the proclamation of the end of religion. Religion is a human activity dedicated to the job of reconciling God to humanity and humanity to itself. The Gospel, however - the Good News of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the astonishing announcement that God has done the whole work of reconciliation without a scrap of human assistance. It is the bizarre proclamation that religion is over - period.

...we are saved by Christ alone who raises us from the dead - from the absolution of our death. We come before him at the judgement with no handwriting whatsoever against us. It's simply cheating to say you believe that and then renege on it by postulating some list of extra-rotten crimes for which Christ has to send you to hell. He, the universal Redeemer, is the only judge; as far as he's concerned, the only mandatory sentence is to life and life abundant.

Grace cannot prevail...until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed.

Only miracle is plain; it is in the ordinary that groans with the weight of glory.

Why do we marry, why take friends and lovers? Why give ourselves to music, painting, chemistry or cooking? Out of simple delight in the resident goodness of creation, of course; but out of more than that, too. Half earth's gorgeousness lies hidden in the glimpsed city it longs to become.

But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions of glory.

The truth that makes us free is always ticking away like a time-bomb in the basement of everybody's church.