Ideas

Good Friday

You do not understand Christ till you understand His cross.

Accepting Our Wounds

Jesus did not die in order to spare us the indignities of the wounded creation. He died that we might see those wounds as our own.

Peter J. Gomes,Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living

Outside the Gate

The symbol of the cross in the church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city. It does not invite thought but a change of mind. It is a symbol which therefore leads out of the church and out of religious longing into the fellowship of the oppressed and abandoned. On the other hand, it is a symbol which calls the oppressed and godless into the church and through the church into the fellowship of the crucified God.

Jürgen Moltmann,The Crucified God

Fair Questions

Christ on the cross cries:
My people,
what wrong have I done to you?
What good have I not done for you?
Listen to me.
Is it nothing to you,
all you who pass by?
Look and see if there is any sorrow
like to my sorrow.We adore you,
O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your holy cross
you have redeemed the world.

Anonymous Medieval Prayer,2000 Years of Prayer

God Did It

It was not human beings who accomplished anything here [on the cross]; no, God alone did it. He came to human beings in infinite love. He judged what is human. And he granted grace beyond any merit.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from a sermon on Romans 11:6 in Meditations on the Cross

Strange New Landscape

There is no smooth path to God which we can ascend with all our expectations of life confirmed and fulfilled. There is only the way of the cross, where the condemned and crucified Jesus contradicts our expectations, forces us to see ourselves as we really are, not as we would like to be seen, and reveals the world as a strange new landscape we had not seen before, a paradoxical game in which only losers can succeed.

Richard Bauckham And Trevor Hart,At the Cross

Out from the Shadows

Christianity does not ask us to live in the shadow of the cross, but in the fire of its creative action.

Teilhard De Chardin in John Moses, The Desert

The Horror of It All

It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear the story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all.

Dorothy Sayers in Barbara Brown Taylor, God in Pain

Unconquered God

God, the God I love and worship, reigns in sorrow on the Tree, Broken, bleeding, but unconquered, very God of God to me.

G. A. Studdert Kennedy, from “High and Lifted Up”

Related Elsewhere

See also our “Reflections on Easter Sunday“, also posted today on ChristianityToday.com.

Copyright © 2000 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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In Print:The Bad Old Days?

The Back Page | Philip Yancey:My To-Be List

Marriage: Californians keep marriage straight

Law: Scouts defend no-homosexuals policy

Updates

Saving Conservatives’ Honor

People: North America

Worship: Networking Against Poverty

In Summary:Popular Apologetics

Congress: Bigotry Alleged in Chaplaincy Choice

Smaller is Better?

Arrested Priest Denies Violence Charges

Sudan: Mixing Oil and Blood

Briefs: The World

India: Missionary's killer arrested

Austria: Voters not Nazis, churches say

Africa: A Windup Gospel and Recycled Studios

God Ble$$ America

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Fundraising: 'Flamingoed' for Missions

Carl Ellis on How Islam Is Winning Black America

The Company of Sinners

Columbine's Tortuous Road to Healing

The Church at the Top of the World

The Benefit of the Doubt

Answering Islam’s Questions

Wire Story

Court OKs Good Friday Holiday

Confronting Sudan

Easter Sunday

A Little Wine for the Soul?

Popular Culture:The Clay Cries Out

Your World:Sex and Saints

Liberator of the West

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