Easter Quotes

“People referred to the symbolism of the empty Cross more than once on its journey. It would seem obviously to point to our faith in Jesus’ resurrection. It’s not quite so simple though. The Cross is bare, but in and of itself the empty Cross does not point directly to the Resurrection. It says only that the body of Jesus was removed from the Cross. If a crucifix is a symbol of Good Friday, then it is the image of the empty tomb that speaks more directly of Easter and resurrection. The empty Cross is a symbol of Holy Saturday. It’s an indicator of the reality of Jesus’ death, of His sharing in our mortal coil. At the same time, the empty Cross is an implicit sign of impending resurrection, and it tells us that the Cross is not only a symbol of hatred, violence and inhumanity: it says that the Cross is about something more.

The empty Cross also tells us not to jump too quickly to resurrection, as if the Resurrection were a trump card that somehow absolves us from suffering. The Resurrection is not a divine ‘get-out-of-jail free’ card that immunises people from pain, suffering or death. To jump too quickly to the Resurrection runs the risk of trivialising people’s pain and seemingly mapping out a way through suffering that reduces the reality of having to live in pain and endure it at times. For people grieving, introducing the message of the Resurrection too quickly cheapens or nullifies their sense of loss. The empty Cross reminds us that we cannot avoid suffering and death. At the same time, the empty Cross tells us that, because of Jesus’ death, the meaning of pain, suffering and our own death has changed, that these are not all-crushing or definitive. The empty Cross says that the way through to resurrection must always break in from without as something new, that it cannot be taken hold of in advance of suffering or seized as a panacea to pain. In other words, the empty Cross is a sign of hope. It tells us that the new life of God surprises us, comes at a moment we cannot expect, and reminds us that experiences of pain, grief and dying are suffused with the presence of Christ, the One Who was crucified and is now risen.”
― Chris Ryan MGL, In the Light of the Cross: Reflections on the Australian Journey of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon

“Of course God does outrageous things. But in reality, what insanity would prompt me to follow a God who did anything less?”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Christ is not alive now because he rose from the dead two thousand years ago. He rose from the dead two thousand years ago because he is alive right now.”
― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

“I’m not trying to con kids into optimism or false confidence. I really believe this stuff. My view of violence and victory in children’s stories hinges entirely on my faith. Samson lost his eyes and died … but he has new eyes in the resurrection. Israel was enslaved in Egypt, but God sent a wizard far more powerful than Gandalf to save His people. Christ took the world’s darkness on his shoulders and died in agony. But then … Easter.

In the end, good wins. Always.”
― N.D. Wilson

“Like the rest of Holy Week, Easter is also a terrific story. It starts as tragedy: the hero broken and bloody, against all expectation dead, his followers' joyful hope in him entombed with his corpse, the rock rolled into place, sealing their despair.

But the curtain doesn't fall there. The next morning at dawn they discover the rock has been rolled back. The tomb is empty, the body's gone! A missing corpse? Great stuff. A whisper of comedy. Now a touch of farce as Mary Magdalen and the guys chase frantically around looking for help, or the corpse, when suddenly, out of nowhere, up it pops—alive!

Of course it's Jesus, who's done the impossible and beaten death.

And they're so amazed they think he's the gardener! It's a payoff way beyond the Hollywood ending: all the flooding emotion and uplift of a tragedy followed by all the bubbling joy and optimism of a comedy.

Is that possible? Not just to live happily ever after but to die—and still live happily ever after? It's the most audacious claim of Christianity, the one element that marks the brand indelibly, that trumps the claims of all other major faiths.”
― Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

“Easter is God throwing everything at death so that I can give everything to life.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Easter says that every ending ever experienced by man is exquisitely crafted to find its own ending at the feet of a fresh beginning.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Jesus no longer belongs to the past but lives in the present and is projected toward the future; Jesus is the everlasting "today" of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples, and all of us: as victory over sin, evil, and death - over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. And this is a message meant for me and for you, dear sister, you, dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness...and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!”
― Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy

“There are an incalculable number of things within me that I frantically wish to be emptied of, and despite my most earnest efforts to remove them, they remain. And it is Easter that reminds me that God empties out tombs.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“We need to know that our limits do not define our limitations. And an empty tomb does exactly that.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“I am pressed to admit that I don’t have the capacity to understand the bloodied horrors of a cross and the wild exhilaration of an empty tomb. But at the point that I think I completely understand God, I have at that very point humanized Him and in that very action I have lost Him. Therefore, I much prefer to simply marvel.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Crucified Love lives with us today and till the end of times as He promised.Amen.The beauty of the cross and our crucified Lord cannot be fathomed by human mind or by barely reading scriptures in bits, but by careful reading of entire scripture in the spirit which will in turn engulf one with wisdom and love.”
― Henrietta Newton Martin

“My sin murdered Him. And out of this self-loathing shame borne of the understanding that I could perpetrate such a heinous act, I am barely able to raise my head sufficiently to ask what crazed insanity would prompt Jesus to walk out of an empty tomb for the single purpose of pursuing a decaying soul that murdered Him? And I would be wise to consider that the question itself is asked only because I have yet to touch the barest periphery of God’s love despite the fact that because of an empty tomb it stands right in front of me.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus

“Sure, things die. Yet hard on the heels of every death there comes a birth. And if the life around me is being perpetually refreshed in such a relentless manner, why would I think that the life within me can’t have the same experience.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Reasonably speaking, we can see the cross as entirely possible. But in considering Easter, we see an empty tomb as entirely impossible. And is it possible that God had to do the impossible to finally get our attention?”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“What would behoove me to instantly declare God not to be God unless He followed my script in some tediously exacting manner? I must confess that I am less likely to believe that it’s a matter of some narcissistic demand that I freely pen my own script. Rather, I think it’s fear that I’m too inadequate to follow God’s.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Easter is the final solution to the finality of death.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Christmas and Easter are attitudinal bookends for an enlightened world view. With an enlightened view of Christmas, we understand that it is within our power through God to give birth to a divine self. With an enlightened view of Easter, we understand that this self is the power of the universe before which death itself has no real power. Resurrection is the symbol of joy, it is the great 'ah-ha!' The acceptance of the resurrection is the realization of the fact that we need wait no longer to see ourselves as healed and whole.”
― Marianne Williamson

“We almost always undervalue the significance of the Victory at the Cross.But as our understanding is gradually enlightened, we are continuously awed at how much the Father hath loved us”
― Kingsley Onwuchekwa

“Pakistan is an Islamic country and the victim of an Easter terrorist attack. Groups like Isis or in this case the Taliban are not about religion. No more than the KKK is about Christianity. These groups are about hate! I did post on the Pakistani attack because it is really important to point out that brown and black people in the middle east and Africa are being killed. Terrorism isn't about Islam. It is about hate. SO let's fight this hate. Let's stand united with our Islamic brothers and sisters who are being slaughtered. Step back from judging a religion you are not exposed to. Understand that we need to work together. ALL faiths. That's how we defeat this”
― Johnny Corn

“The sure path to tomorrow was plotted in a manger and paved on a cross. And although this sturdy byway is mine for the taking, I have incessantly chosen lesser paths. And maybe it is time to realize that Christmas is a promise that I can walk through the world and never get lost in the woods.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Despite the fact that life has repeatedly reinforced my conviction that the tomb was empty, some of my most profound errors have occurred when I was straining under the weight of a death that was in reality the liberation of a transition.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Too often our lives are soiled to desperation by endings that in reality are magnificently outnumbered by beginnings. And unless we become convinced that an ending is always the birthplace of a beginning that is on its way, we will live terribly soiled lives.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Do I dare believe such an absurdly outrageous story that a man would die, lay lifeless in some tomb for three days and then somehow live again? Yet, if I dare to consider it, is that not exactly what I so desperately desire for this lifeless life of mine? And is Easter God’s tenderly outrageous way of telling me that that is exactly what I can have?”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Easter is the invulnerable tale of utter selflessness where at an inestimable cost God did for us what He did not need done for Himself. And that kind of ‘doing’ happens every day.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“La semana santa propicia despliegues de teatralidad insulsa, tan cara al alma mexicana y a sus conflictos esenciales: la madre gime porque su hijo está en problemas, y los hijos sangran porque los abandonó su padre.”
― Guillermo Sheridan

“Spend every moment in "Hope" and "Love" for God for he has risen and brought us courage.”
― Phil Mitchell, A Bright New Morning: An American Story

“Perfect majesty that deliberately chose to be born into abject poverty, walk a road of perpetual poverty, and be unjustly executed in the raw nakedness of poverty is utterly ludicrous unless I realize that this is the single and sole way that God can reach me in the suffocating poverty that I myself have created.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Jesus doesn't want what you can do for Him. He wants you.....all of you.....the good and the bad.”
― Wade Grassedonio, Jesus and the Bunny: The story of how a lovable little bunny became the Easter Bunny

“My limitations abruptly define the frighteningly negligible extent of my existence, yet my soul utterly perishes if bound by those very same limits. And does this not somehow evidence both the reality of and need for God?”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough