Crucifixion Quotes

“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.”
― W.H. Auden

“It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.”
― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Unless You Become Like This Child

“A dead Christ I must do everything for; a living Christ does everything for me.”
― Andrew Murray, Jesus Himself

“[Jesus] tilted His head back, pulled up one last time to draw breath and cried, "Tetelestai!" It was a Greek expression most everyone present would have understood. It was an accounting term. Archaeologists have found papyrus tax receipts with "Tetelestai" written across them, meaning "paid in full." With Jesus' last breath on the cross, He declared the debt of sin cancelled, completely satisfied. Nothing else required. Not good deeds. Not generous donations. Not penance or confession or baptism or...or...or...nothing. The penalty for sin is death, and we were all born hopelessly in debt. He paid our debt in full by giving His life so that we might live forever.”
― Swindoll Charles R.

“Reflect carefully on this, for it is so important that I can hardly lay too much stress on it. Fix your eyes on the Crucified and nothing else will be of much importance to you.”
― Saint Teresa of Avila

“Our father. We have killed him, and we will kill him again, and our world will kill him. And yet he is there. It is he who listens at the door. It is he who is coming. It is our father who is about to be born. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

“Suffering comes to us as an interrogator. It asks, “Who are you?”
― David A. Fiensy, The Journey: Spiritual Growth in Galatians and Philippians

“Every action is a losing, a letting go, a passing away from oneself of some bit of one’s own reality into the existence of others and of the world. In Jesus Christ, this character of action is not resisted, by trying to use our action to assert ourselves, extend ourselves, to impose our will and being upon situations. In Jesus Christ, this self-expending character of action is joyfully affirmed. I receive myself constantly from God’s Parenting love. But so far as some aspects of myself are at my disposal, these I receive to give away. Those who would live as Jesus did—who would act and purpose themselves as Jesus did—mean to love, i.e., they mean to expend themselves for others unto death. Their being is meant to pass away from them to others, and they make that meaning the conscious direction of their existence.

Too often the love which is proclaimed in the churches suppresses this element of loss and need and death in activity. As a Christian, I often speak of love as helping others, but I ignore what this does to the person who loves. I ignore the fact that love is self-expenditure, a real expending and losing and deterioration of the self. I speak of love as if the person loving had no problems, no needs, no limits. In other words, I speak of love as if the affluent dream were true. This kind of proclamation is heard everywhere. We hear it said: 'Since you have no unanswered needs, why don’t you go out and help those other people who are in need?' But we never hear people go on and add: 'If you do this, you too will be driven into need.' And by not stating this conclusion, people give the childish impression that Christian love is some kind of cornucopia, where we can reach to everybody’s needs and problems and still have everything we need for ourselves. Believe me, there are grown-up persons who speak this kind of nonsense. And when people try to live out this illusory love, they become terrified when the self-expending begins to take its toll. Terror of relationship is [that] we eat each other.

But note this very carefully: like Jesus, we too can only live to give our received selves away freely because we know our being is not thereby ended, but still and always lies in the Parenting of our God....

Those who love in the name of Jesus Christ... serve the needs of others willingly, even to the point of being exposed in their own neediness.... They do not cope with their own needs. They do not anguish over how their own needs may be met by the twists and turns of their circumstances, by the whims of their society, or by the strategies of their own egos. At the center of their life—the very innermost center—they are grateful to God, because... they do not fear neediness. That is what frees them to serve the needy, to companion the needy, to become and be one of the needy.”
― Arthur C. McGill, Dying Unto Life

“Our crucifixes exhibit the pain, but they veil, perhaps necessarily, the obscenity: but the death of the God-Man was both.”
― Charles Williams

“There's unique and particular moment in the natural law of universe,
where all things except them are going to turn against their wickedness.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“I hate and love. If you ask me to explain
The contradiction,
I can’t, but I can feel it, and the pain
Is crucifixion”
― Catullus

“We stand now at the cross, in the moments of Jesus’s greatest pain. May we bear in mind the central emotional truth of Good Friday: that the Christian tradition grew from the most wrenching, mysterious, and mystifying sacrifice imaginable—that of a father’s offering of his child.”
― Jon Meacham, The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross

“If he did not suffer, if he did not bleed, if he did not feel every bit of the pain of execution as he gulped for air, then he would not be the Christ we know. He was fulfilling his epochal role in history on that cross; he was not playacting, not a god pretending to die. He was the Word made flesh, who was, however strangely and incomprehensibly, full of grace and truth.”
― Jon Meacham, The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross

“Day of the Dogwood by Stewart Stafford

If I opened my veins,
With the Saviour’s nails,
Will your bloodlust go?
Where compassion failed?

Do I sweat out blood now?
Or is it your crown of thorns?
Miracles to silvered treachery,
Pure as first Christmas morn.

Scattered flock, shepherd leaves,
Can you sheep know what you do?
Such immaculate deception, but,
Know this sacred heart was true.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“I personally would like a lot more stuff around here to make sense. But when something ghastly happens, it is not helpful to many people if you say that it's all part of God's perfect plan, or that it's for the highest good of every person in the drama, or that more will be revealed, even if that is all true. Because at least for me, if someone's cute position minimizes the crucifixion, it's bullshit. Which I say with love.

To use just one Christian example: Christ really did suffer, as the innocent of the earth really do suffer. It's the ongoing tragedy of humans. Our lives and humanity are untidy: disorganized and careworn. Life on earth is often a raunchy and violent experience. It can be agony just to get through the day.

And yet, I do believe there is ultimately meaning in the chaos, and also in the doldrums. What I resist is not the truth but when people put a pretty bow on scary things instead of saying, 'This is a nightmare. I hate everything. I'm going to go hide in the garage.'...

My understanding of incarnation is that we are not served by getting away from the grubbiness of suffering...

It would be great if we could shop, sleep or date our way out of this. Sometimes we think we can, but it feels that way only for a while. To heal, it seems we have to stand in the middle of the horror, at the foot of the cross, and wait out another's suffering where that person can see us.”
― Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott

“How could they believe, upon seeing such a corpse, that this martyr would rise again? Inevitably, the question arises of how, with death being so atrocious and the laws of nature being so powerful, they can be overcome. How can anyone overcome them when even He who, while alive, had already defeated nature, which had submitted to Him when He commanded, "Talitha koum," and the girl arose? Nature appears to us as an immense, relentless, and silent beast.

If the Master Himself could have seen His image after the crucifixion, would He have been willing to climb the cross and consent to die as He did?”
― Dostoevsky, The Idiot

“Carry your cross without crucifying yourself.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“[Pilate] washed his hands when he should have exerted them.”
― James Stalker, The Life of Jesus Christ: A Biographical Overview of the Life of Christ

“Three trillion trees.
They came to be
on the third day of creation.
That double-blessed day
of verdant goodness.

Three trillion trees,
one became the wood
upon which the son of God was hung.
A tree created on the third day.

The third day.
The day of three trillion trees.

And on the third day of new creation,
the stone was rolled away.
On the third day,
the gardener walked again in the garden.
On the third day,
the first born emerged from a cocoon called death.
On the third day
a new world was born.

There is the world that was,
and the world to come,
and between those two worlds
is the wood
upon which the son of God was hung.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross - Library Edition

“Nothing human is a stranger
To God on the tree in agony.
He is in one place, and in all,
The Calvary of Mankind.
He is not safe from our iniquity,
Nor is He absent from our misery.
He is undone in all our history,
And will not leave a curse to mystery.”
― Avellina Balestri, Pendragon's Shield: A Poetry Collection

“Jesus says truth liberates. Yes, truth liberates, but never borrowed truth. Jesus' truth will not liberate you. But Christians believe that Jesus' truth will liberate them. Not only that, they think that just by Jesus' crucifixion humanity is already liberated. This is being blind, absolutely blind. Nothing is liberated, nobody is liberated; salvation has not happened. Jesus was crucified, that's okay, but through Jesus' crucifixion Jesus was liberated, not you. The whole thing seems to be a trick. Jesus died on the cross and humanity, particularly Christianity, is liberated; one who is a Christian is already liberated.”
― Osho, Bird on a Wing

“No one knew the way to placate the enemy's power. In times of tribulation they used to visit the dark caves, laden with gifts. They used to chew bitter leaves before saying their prayers; and once when they had grown desperate they chose the best among them and crucified him. Because the white men keep their God thus, nailed hand and foot to stop his anger from being unleashed. But the Indians had watched it rot, that martyred body they had tried to set up as a safeguard against misfortune.”
― Rosario Castellanos, Balún Canán

“Oh, Wonder of Wonders

Oh, wonder of wonders
My God, can it be
That Jesus has died
For one rebel like me

He lifted my bondage
And soul's misery
The Lord, King of glory
Was wounded for me

They led Him to trial
They spit in His face
He bore it alone
Oh, amazing His grace

He bowed neath his burden
Was scourged in my place
I'll sing it forever
Amazing His grace

With hands full of mercy
With hearts full of good
My spotless Redeemer
Was nailed to the wood

He suffered Hell's torment
My soul to set free
Deserted by God
As He hung on the tree

He died, but he rose
He extracted death's sting
He is living enthroned
My savior, my king

Let the earth hear His voice
Men and angels proclaim
'He's coming! He's coming!'
He's coming again

With the saints marching in
I shall be at that throne
In the great 'hallelujahs'
I'll join in that song

With apostles and prophets
My best, Lord with thee
I shall live! I shall live!
Eternally”
― Leonard Ravenhill, Revival God's Way

“Each act of hate is the same old crucifixion frenzy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim

“The cross is not merely a corporate brand for a world religion called 'Christianity' but an ancient tool of suffering, humiliation, and judgment.”
― James Collazo, First-Century Faith: Reviving Christian Origins in Belief and Practice

“The Word by Stewart Stafford

Though I am gone, at last, you see,
Everything I spoke heralds true,
Cleansing your wrongs done to me,
In promised vistas of unlimited hue.

If I stayed, they said you would pay,
I took the strain, assured you sanctuary,
I am the sentinel that prepares the way,
Evolving beyond the dusty ossuary.

Words in strange clothing upon sharing,
By living, know your shadow's meaning,
Familiarity flourishes upon the wearing,
Shepherd's flock on rich pastures weaning.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Jesus, let me see You in the manger and remember that the hope of the world rests in the shadow of the Cross behind it.”
― Allene vanOirschot, JOY TO THE WORLD A CHRISTMAS PRAYER JOURNAL: 4 Week Devotional Prepare A Way For The Lord, Advent, Christmas Bible Verses, Inspirational

“Who am I to fear criticism or blame, when this world crucifies the godly?”
― Andreea Daiana, Under Moonlight: 2025