Hans Urs von Balthasar Quotes

Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.

Think of everything you've ever experienced that was painful; that's the meaning of Good Friday. Think of all the ways that love ultimately healed your heart; that's the meaning of Easter.

It is the resurrection that makes Good Friday good.

The cross of Christ is the true ground and chief cause of Christian hope.

There would be no Christmas if there was no Easter.

We may say that on the first Good Friday afternoon was completed that great act by which light conquered darkness and goodness conquered sin. That is the wonder of our Saviour's crucifixion.

What is good about Good Friday? Why isn't it called Bad Friday? Because out of the appallingly bad came what was inexpressibly good. And the good trumps the bad, because though the bad was temporary, the good is eternal.

Easter is always the answer to "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!"

I am one of the crucified dead.

Without a doubt, at the center of the New Testament there stands the Cross, which receives its interpretation from the Resurrection.

In contrast, Christianity, while acknowledging the presence of suffering, declares that life can be infinitely worth living and opens the way to eternal life in fellowship with God Who so loved the world that He gave Himself in Christ.

By its birth, and for all time, Christianity is pledged to the Cross and dominated by the sign of the Cross. It cannot remain its own self except by identifying itself ever more intensely with the essence of the Cross.

Easter is about Jesus: the Jesus who announced God's saving, sovereign kingdom.

Jesus Christ has taken the lead on the way of the cross. He has suffered first. He does not drive us toward suffering but shares it with us, wanting us to have life and to have it in abundance.

It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.

At its very core the story of Easter has nothing to do with angelic announcements or empty tombs. It has nothing to do with time periods, whether three days, forty days, or fifty days. It has nothing to do with resuscitated bodies that appear and disappear or that finally exit this world in a heavenly ascension.

I know that God is our Father. He introduced His Son, Jesus Christ, to Joseph Smith. I declare to you that I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that He lives. He was born in the meridian of time. He taught His gospel and was tried. He suffered and was crucified and resurrected on the third day. He, like His Father, has a body of flesh and bone. He made His Atonement. Of Him I bear witness. Of Him I am a witness.

There is no way of salvation except through the cross of Christ.

The cross is the standing statement of what we do to one another and to ourselves. The resurrection is the standing statement of what God does to us in return.

In his (Christ's) surrender on the cross all the pain and agony of mankind was concentrated at a single point, and passed through from death to immortality, There is no pain of any creature from the beginning to the end of time which was not 'known' at this point and thus transmuted. To know all things in the Word is thus to know all the suffering of the world transfigured by the resurrection, somehow reconciled and atoned in eternal life. It was God's purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things on heaven and things on earth'.

Every day of the year is a good day to think more deeply about Good Friday, for Good Friday is the drama of the love by which our every day is sustained.

When Jesus cried, 'It is finished!' He was not speaking of the plan of redemption. There were still three days and nights to go through before He went to the throne...Jesus' death on the cross was only the beginning of the complete work of redemption.

Without the cross, there's only condemnation. If Jesus wasn't executed, there's no celebration.

At the cross God wrapped his heart in flesh and blood and let it be nailed to the cross for our redemption.

Easter is reflecting upon suffering for one thing, but it also reflects upon Jesus and his non compliance in the face of great authority where he holds to his truth - so there's two stories there.