Love and hatred are not merely subjective feelings, affecting the inward universe of those who experience them, but they are also objective forces, altering the world outside ourselves...if this is true of my love, it is true to an incomparably greater extent of Christ's love. The victory of his suffering love upon the Cross does not merely set me an example, showing me what I myself may achieve if by my own efforts I imitate him. Much more than this, his suffering love has a creative effect upon me, transforming my own heart and will, releasing me from bondage, making me whole, rendering it possible for me to love in a way that would lie altogether beyond my powers, had I not first been loved by him.
Kallistos WareHe, the Life of all, our Lord and Saviour, did not arrange the manner of his own death lest He should seem to be afraid of some other kind. No. He accepted and bore upon the cross a death inflicted by others, and those other His special enemies, a death which to them was supremely terrible and by no means to be faced; and He did this in order that, by destroying even this death, He might Himself be believed to be the Life, and the power of death be recognised as finally annulled. A marvellous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonour and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death's defeat.
Athanasius of AlexandriaTags: death jesus cross incarnation resurrection
Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the presence of its Maker.
Athanasius of AlexandriaTags: god jesus creation witness cross
In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection against our enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is excellence of virtue; in the Cross is perfection of holiness. There is no salvation of soul, nor hope of eternal life, save in the Cross.
Thomas à KempisGod, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves.
C.S. LewisTags: love god cross charity christ
It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.
Hans Urs von BalthasarTags: christianity suffering jesus theology cross catholicism jesus-christ redemption christ crucifixion the-cross
He was without any comforts of God — no feeling that God loved him — no
feeling that God pitied him — no feeling that God supported him. God was his
sun before — now that sun became all darkness… He was without God — he
was as if he had no God. All that God had been to him before was taken from
him now. He was Godless — deprived of his God. He had the feeling of the
condemned, when the Judge says: “Depart from me, ye cursed,” “who shall
be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and
from the glory of his power.” He felt that God said the same to him. Ah! This is
the hell which Christ suffered. The ocean of Christ’s sufferings is
unfathomable… He was forsaken in the [place] of sinners. If you close with him
as your surety, you will never be forsaken… “My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?” [The answer?] For me — for me.
Tags: love suffering jesus cross
God has chosen to save the world through the cross, through the shameful and
powerless death of the crucified Messiah. If that shocking event is the
revelation of the deepest truth about the character of God, then our whole way
of seeing the world is turned upside down… all values are transformed… God
refuses to play games of power and prestige on human terms.
Tags: power god suffering weakness cross
God Hold us to that which drew us first, when the Cross was the attraction, and we wanted nothing else.
Amy CarmichaelTags: god cross missionary important first drawn primary
All crosses had their tops cut and became T's. There was also a thing called God.
Aldous HuxleyTags: god cross crosses letter-t t
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