Some Good Friday Thoughts

Here are two great quotes from "The Cross Shattered Christ" by Stanley Hauerwas.

"The silence of Jesus before Pilate can now be understood for what it is -
namely, that Jesus refuses to accept the termsof how the world understands
power and authority... We seek to 'explain' these words [My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me] of dereliction, to save and protect God from
making a foodl out of being God, but our attempts to protect God reveal how
frightening we find a God who refuses to save us by violence."


"'Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world'- Pascal; This is a remark
that makes unaviodable the recognition that we live in the time between the
times - the Kingdom is begun in Christ but will not be consumated or perfected
until the end of the world... [Pascal's comment] is an exhortation not to become
nostaligic for a supposedly less compromised past or take refuge in some imagined
purified future, but to dwell in the tension-filled time between times, to remain
awake to our inability 'to stay in the almost unbearable present moment where
Jesus is."