The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross
Jon Meacham
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it,” the”
“Without Good Friday, there is no Easter; without Easter, there is no deliverance from evil; without deliverance from evil, there is no victory of light over dark, of love over hate, of life over death.”
“We stand now at the cross, in the moments of Jesus’s greatest pain. May we bear in mind the central emotional truth of Good Friday: that the Christian tradition grew from the most wrenching, mysterious, and mystifying sacrifice imaginable—that of a father’s offering of his child.”
“We must make our peace with mystery or else we might go mad. For me, faith is complicated, challenging and sometimes confounding. It is not magical but mysterious. Magic means there is a spell, a formula, to work wonders. Mystery means there is no spell, no formula—only shadow and impenetrability and hope that, in a phrase T.S. Eliot borrowed from Julian of Norwich, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
“Thou seest, not only the stains and scars of past sins, but the mutilations, the deep cavities, the chronic disorders which they have left in my soul. Thou seest the innumerable living sins…living in their power and presence, their guilt, and their penalties, which clothe me….Yet Thou comest. Thou seest most perfectly….Yet Thou comest.”
“These answers are fine as far as they go - but still children die, things go wrong, and hearts get broken, so the answers don't go very far. I certainly can't dispose of the challenges to Christian belief, nor can I make an entirely rational case for the existence of God. What I can do is join a vast chorus of voices who see religion as intrinsic and seek to make their home in the ethos of a faith that suggests an order and a direction amid the confusions of life.”
“Then his Father’s will was done, and from darkness came light, and death was conquered. This is our story, our faith, our consolation.”
“Still, the gospels are not biographies but apologetic documents, composed to persuade, to inspire, and to convince. (John is explicit about this: “These are written that you may believe…and that believing you may have life in his name.”) The gospels must be read critically, with a sense of historical context. Which is to say, the Last Words that we are about to encounter may or may not have actually been spoken by Jesus. What is certain is that each of the evangelists thought it important for his audience to believe that Jesus had said them.”
“Light can neither emanate from, nor enter into, a closed mind. And so for all its limitations, reason—the weighing of evidence, the assessment of likelihood, the capacity to shift one’s opinions in light of thought and of experience—remains essential. Without reason, we cannot appreciate complexity; without appreciating complexity, we cannot rightly appreciate the majesty and mystery of God; and without rightly appreciating the majesty and mystery of God, we foreclose the possibility of the miraculous and the redemptive.”
“Jerusalem and a theological event that transformed the world.”
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Book Keywords:
jesus-christ, julian-of-norwich, good-friday, t-s-eliot, mystery, inspirational, philosophy-of-life, practicality-in-face-of-doubt, faith, crucifixion
