As we enter Easter, Faith Today gathered a handful of quotes for your reflection on this weekend of somber remembrance and joyful celebration.
As we enter Easter, Faith Today gathered a handful of quotes for your reflection on this weekend of somber remembrance and joyful celebration. 
“And as he rose from the dead he triumphed over all the bad and ugly things in this world — like crosses and guns and bombs — and things like violence, murder, hatred, racism, and all the stuff that destroys life. The promise of Easter is that after the world went dark on that Friday dripping with blood, the sun will rise again.” -Shane Claiborne, “Death Be Not Proud: The Easter Gospel of Non-Violence”
“The first explosion brings him out of the tomb. Wow. “My Lord and my God.” The next one, the Big One, will bring us all out. And it will rearrange the entire topography of the world: spiritual, political, medical, ecological, aesthetic—you name it. The Lamb-become-Lion will toss away the crown of thorns for a crown of light, and true religion and true justice will reign in him forever. Quite a weekend, this Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Happy Easter. Not what they might appear to be. Nor is Jesus quite what he appears to be. Thank God.” – John Stackhouse, “The Subversiveness of Easter”
“Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.” – John R.W. Stott
“Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about.”
– N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.
“Left to my own devices, I’d probably skip Good Friday. But I suspect that if I did, Easter morning would become increasingly hollow. I’d forget how much my salvation cost.” – Carolyn Arends, “What’s So Good About Good Friday?”
“From the resurrection of Christ a new and purifying wind can blow into the present world. If a few human beings would really believe this and would let themselves be moved by this in their earthly behavior, much would change. To live from resurrection – that indeed is the meaning of Easter.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Mystery of Easter.
“Outside of the cross of Jesus Christ, there is no hope in this world. That cross and resurrection at the core of the Gospel is the only hope for humanity. Wherever you go, ask God for wisdom on how to get that Gospel in, even in the toughest situations of life.” – Ravi Zacharias
“God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.'” – Billy Graham
“The disciples bear the suffering laid on them only by the power of him who bears all suffering on the cross. As bearers of suffering, they stand in communion with the Crucified. They stand as strangers in the power of him who was so alien to the world that it crucified him. This is their comfort, or rather, he is their comfort, their comforter (cf. Luke 2;25) This alien community is comforted by the cross. It is comforted in that it is thrust out to the place where the comforter of Israel is waiting. Thus it finds its true home with the crucified Lord, here and in eternity.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship.