Quotes about Redemption

The bottom line of the Gospel is that most of us have to hit some kind of bottom before we even start the real spiritual journey.

The Church, as Jesus seems to be defining it, is the gathering of accepted brokenness. It's not the gathering of the saved.

the Twelve Steps, however, believes that sin and failure are, in fact, the setting and opportunity for the transformation and enlightenment of the offender

The Crucified One is God's standing solidarity with the suffering, the tragedy, and the disaster of all time, and God's promise that it will not have the final word. The Risen One is God's final word about the universe and what God plans to do with all suffering.

What we call Original Sin in Genesis perhaps could, in a sense, be better called Original Shame, because Adam and Eve describe themselves as feeling naked. Some of the first words of God to these newly created people are, "Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11). Next, in a lovely maternal image, God as seamstress sews leather garments for them (3:21). The first thing God does after creation itself is cover the shame of these new creatures.

The healthy do not need a doctor, but sick people do. I have not come to coddle the comfortable, but to set trapped people free for a new life." Luke 5:31—32

The breathing into Adam (Genesis 2:7) has become the breathing out of Jesus (John 20:22)

The incarnation has become resurrection in you.

Only with a notion of the Preexisting Christ can we recover where this Jesus was "coming from" and where he is leading us—which is precisely into the "bosom of the Trinity" (John 1:18). "I shall return to take you with me, so that where I am you also may be" (John 14:3), the Christ has promised. That might just be the best and most succinct description of salvation there is in the whole New Testament.

We have been graced for a truly sweet surrender, if we can radically accept being radically accepted—for nothing! "Or grace would not be grace at all"! (Romans 11:6).

If I can recognize that all suffering and crucifixion (divine, planetary, human, animal) is "one body" and will one day be transmuted into the "one body" of cosmic resurrection (Philippians 3:21), I can at least live without going crazy or being permanently depressed.

Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor.