“A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief s request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer: I promise thee, this day thou shalt be With Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43) It was the thief s last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour.”
“Could God have justified Himself before human history, so full of suffering, without placing Christ s Cross at the center of that history? . . . But God, who besides being Omnipotence is Wisdom and--to repeat once again--Love, desires to justify Himself to mankind. He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. he is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man s lot and participates in his destiny.”
“If you want to be an honorable man, then be what you pretend to be.”
“The first and foremost reality is that suffering and death are not only enemies of life, but a means of reminding us of life s twin realities, love and hate.”
“Don t bring Hollywood; bring Christ. Don t bring power. Don t bring just your money. Bring love. Bring the kingdom.”
“In His free grace, God is for man in every respect; He surrounds man from all sides. He is man s Lord who is before him, above him, after him, and thence also with him in history, the locus of man s existence. Despite man s insignificance, God is with him as his Creator who intended and made mankind to be very good. Despite man s sin, God is with him, the One who was in Jesus Christ reconciling the world, drawing man unto Himself in merciful judgment. Man s evil past is not merely crossed out because of its irrelevancy. Rather, it is in the good care of God. Despite man s life in the flesh, corrupt and ephemeral, God is with him. The victor in Christ is here and now present through His Spirit, man s strength, companion, and comfort. Despite man s death God is with him, meeting him as redeemer and perfecter at the threshold of the future to show him the totality of existence in the true light in which the eyes of God beheld it from the beginning and will behold it evermore. In what He is for man and does for man, God ushers in the history leading to the ultimate salvation of man.”
“In Jesus Christ there is no isolation of man from God or of God from man. Rather, in Him we encounter the history, the dialogue, in which God and man meet together and are together, the reality of the covenant MUTUALLY contracted, preserved, and fulfilled by them. Jesus Christ is in His one Person, as true GOD, MAN S loyal partner, and as true MAN, GOD S. He is the Lord humbled for communion with man and likewise the Servant exalted to communion with God.”
“Christ is born, my wise Solomon, my wretched pen-pusher! Don´t go picking things over with a needle! Is He born or isn´t He? Of course He is born, don´t be daft. If you take a magnifying glass and look at your drinking water-an engineer told me this, one day – you´ll see, he said, the water´s full of little worms you couldn´t see with your naked eye. You´ll see the worms and you won´t drink. You won´t drink and you´ll curl up with thirst. Smash your glass, boss, and the little worms´ll vanish and you can drink and be refreshed!”