Jesus Paradox Quotes & Sayings

He, 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 Alexandria

The Alexandrian Mystics' emphasis on silent prayer gave their teachings interior depth missing from Western theology today. — Amos Smith

Many came to Jesus expecting him to solve their problems. Instead he helped them to connect to their own faith and their own wisdom. — Amos Smith

When I ask to photograph someone, it is because I love the way they look and I think I make that clear. I'm paying them a tremendous compliment. What I'm saying is, I want to take you home with me and look at you for the rest of my life. — Amy Arbus

A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom. Only those who understand the profound paradox of the cross can also understand the whole meaning of Jesus' assertion: my kingdom is not of this world. 2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lectures to the Congregation in Barcelona — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Real slow hits from the bong ...
Make me feel like Cheech,
And I'm kickin' it with Chong. — B-Real

In his lecture on Jesus, Brown meditated on the unlikely paradox that any institution could represent this man because institutions, by their very nature, have to follow particular laws if they are to survive and prosper; and the main law of institutional survival is that the many take precedence over the few. If institutions are to endure they have to place a higher value on their own endurance than on loyalty to individuals, no matter how attractive or charismatic they may be. — Richard Holloway

Fear is the beginning of wisdom. — Eugenie De Guerin

Jesus always existed. At the same time Jesus was begotten (made human). This is the perplexing and elusive mystic core of Christian faith. — Amos Smith

Such is the paradox of Jesus the Christ in the world. Because God is limitless he assumed human form and lived a limited life. Because God is unknowable, he became a person whom we can know. Jesus is God's gift of God's self to space and time precisely so we can come slightly closer to understanding God and to understanding ourselves in relation to God. — Phyllis Zagano

Maybe God is only the most powerful poetic idea we humans're capable of thinkin'," he said one night, after a few drinks. "Maybe God has no reality outside our minds and exists only in the paradox of Perfect Compassion and Perfect Justice. Or maybe," he suggested, slouching back in his chair and favoring her with a lopsided, wily grin, "maybe God is exactly as advertised in the Torah. Maybe, along with all its other truths and beauties, Judaism preserves for each generation of us the reality of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses - the God of Jesus." A cranky, uncanny God, D.W. called Him. "A God with quirky, unfathomable rules, a God who gets fed up with us and pissed off! But quick to forgive, Sofia, and generous, — Mary Doria Russell

Was it not part of the secret black art of truly grand politics of revenge, of a farseeing, subterranean, slowly advancing, and premeditated revenge, that Israel must itself deny the real instrument of its revenge before all the world as a mortal enemy and nail it to the cross, so that 'all the world,' namely all the opponents of Israel, could unhesitatingly swallow just this bait? And could spiritual subtlety imagine any more dangerous bait than this? Anything to equal the enticing, intoxicating, overwhelming, and undermining power of that symbol of the 'holy cross,' that ghastly paradox of a 'God on the cross,' that mystery of an unimaginable ultimate cruelty and self-crucifixion of God for the salvation of man? — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a beauty in paradox when it comes to talking about things of ultimate concern. Paradox works against our tendency to stay superficial in our faith, or to rest on easy answers or categorical thinking. It breaks apart our categories by showing the inadequacy of them and by pointing to a reality larger than us, the reality of gloria, of light, of beyond-the-beyond. I like to call it paradoxology - the glory of paradox, paradox-doxology - which takes us somewhere we wouldn't be capable of going if we thought we had everything all wrapped up, if we thought we had attained full comprehension. The commitment to embracing the paradox and resisting the impulse to categorize people (ourselves included) is one of the ways we follow Jesus into that larger mysterious reality of light and love. — Nanette Sawyer

Audiences have proved time and again that they don't want a steady diet of any entertainer airing his social views - especially if he's a comedian. — Johnny Carson

God always exalts the humble. — Sunday Adelaja

Far from being a paradox, this invitation is more reasonable than that of our modern gurus, who ask their disciples to imitate them as the great man or woman who imitates no one. Jesus, by contrast, invites us to do what he himself does, to become like him a perfect imitator of God the Father. — Rene Girard

God is mystery, surpassing the senses and all knowledge, and yet God is at the core of our being. — Amos Smith

Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home. — G.K. Chesterton

Throughout the parables the paradoxical teachings continue: Give to receive. Die to live. Lose to win. — Amos Smith

Any chance I had to get in front of people - amateur talent contests at movie houses like the Broadway, the president - I took. — Frankie Avalon

Here is the paradox of the thing we call freedom: the farther we wander from God and the more we try to break free from him, the more enchained we become. Every step we take away from Him leads us farther from the freedom of Jesus and closer to the cruelty of Cain. — Steven James

There's a hysterical, tired sense of humor that comes after working 14 hours a day, six days a week. I like those things because they take the pressure off the constant stress. — Tom Berenger

First of all, skim? That's white water. That's all skim milk is: they take out all the wonderful stuff that makes milk taste like milk and replace it with white water and people actually drink that shit. — MaryJanice Davidson

The tendency is to view God as a cosmic ogre, bound and determined to administer well-deserved punishment; or we envision God as an eternal Mr. Rogers, eager to welcome us all to the neighborhood of the Kingdom.....Jesus however, lived with the dynamic tension of God's wrath and grace; in fact he embodied the paradox. — Marion L. Soards

I recall the passage in the letter to the Hebrews in which we are reminded that Christ has already done everything for us. It speaks of the Christ who "offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews 10:12). And yet the church teaches, and our experience of faith confirms, that Christ continues to be with us and to pray for us. The paradox may be unraveled, I think, if we remember that when human beings try to "do everything at once and for all and be through with it," we court acedia, self-destruction and death. Such power is reserved for God, who alone can turn what is "already done" into something that is ongoing and ever present. It is a quotidian mystery. — Kathleen Norris

To this day the Oriental Orthodox Church asserts that after the incarnation Jesus was "one united dynamic nature": "at once God and human . . ." Ultimately, a Divine mystery - a paradox. — Amos Smith

Jesus brings mystery, paradox, and tension - rarely did someone get a straight answer out of Him — Mike Erre

Theology at its best doesn't seek to solve, but to behold. — Amos Smith

If Jesus is at once God and human, that means that as believers we cannot refer to Jesus as God without qualifying that:"God in human form. — Amos Smith

The contradiction is resolved when you realize that for Jesus peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle, but the presence of love. -p83 — Frederick Buechner

Your daughter's coming of age, you ought to let her see the world a little. — Susumu Katsumata