The Unvarnished Jesus Quotes

“But as Walter Brueggemann says, the problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“The cross is not the appeasement of an angry and retributive god. The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as savior. The cross is not what God inflicts upon Jesus in order to forgive, but what God in Christ endures as he forgives. The cross is where the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity so that it might be forgiven en masse. The cross is where the world violently sinned its sins in the body of the Son of God, and where he absorbed it all, praying, “Father, forgive them.” The cross is both ugly and beautiful. It’s as ugly as human sin and as beautiful as divine love—but in the end love and beauty win. Lord Jesus, as we look at you on the cross, with your arms outstretched in proffered embrace, we pray, forgive us, Lord, for we know not what we do. Amen.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“At its best there’s nothing like the church. A place where Matthew 25 is just a normal day—a place where the poor are fed and clothed, the sick are helped and healed, a place where the immigrant is welcomed, and the prisoner is given dignity. A place where everyone is saint and sinner. A place where a judge and a felon can sit side by side on the same pew with equal status in Christ. A place where we not only carry each other’s burdens, but when necessary carry each other, because, despite our vast differences in education and opportunity, opinions and politics, we are learning to love one another like Jesus loves us—unconditionally. This is the church I believe in. Lord Jesus, help us to behold the church as our mother. And help us to care for our mother, the church, in such a way that she can provide motherly love and care for her sons and daughters. Amen.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Recently a well-known megachurch pastor said, “When I’m looking for a leader I want the meanest, toughest son of a gun I can find.” Whether he understands it or not, this evangelical pastor is saying, “Give us Barabbas!” For many American Christians the politics of Jesus are dismissed as impractical and so they kick the can down the road saying, “maybe someday we can turn our swords into plowshares, but now is the time for us to build more B-2 bombers and stockpile nukes so we can kill all our enemies.” The crowd that gathers on Good Friday shouting, “Give us Barabbas!,” is far more plausible and numerous than most of us imagine. If we think that killing our enemies is compatible with Christian ethics, we are in effect saying, “Give us Barabbas!” But Lent is the time to rethink everything in the light of Christ. We are not called to scrutinize the Sermon on the Mount through the lens of the Pentagon; we are called to follow Jesus by embodying the kingdom of God here and now, no matter what the rest of the world does.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“The truth is that for most of us economic self-interest is the single greatest obstacle to full participation in the kingdom of God. We cannot love our neighbor as our self without being willing to share our wealth.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Most of us are scripted to think that life is a game and the purpose of life is to win. This is the way that seems right. But the divine truth is that life is a gift and the purpose of life is to learn to love well.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Jesus’ triumphal entry was the anti-military parade. It was a mockery of Rome’s intimidating show of military power. It also presented Jerusalem with a stark contrast between the way of war and the way of peace. At the beginning of Holy Week, Pontius Pilate and Jesus of Nazareth are at the head of two very different parades.  The question for us is which parade are we marching in—the military parade of Pilate that still believes the world is to be shaped by war, or the peace parade of Jesus that understands that with the coming of Christ war has been abolished?”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“And so the Savior of the world directs us toward a re-appropriation of Lamech’s seventy time seven equation, applying it to the practice of radical forgiveness. The most remarkable thing about Christ-informed ethics is its commitment to forgiveness—indeed, if Christianity is about anything, it’s about forgiveness. So Jesus calls us beyond the ever-escalating revenge of Lamech and beyond the mitigated revenge of Moses into a world where revenge is renounced altogether. Jesus saves the world by turning exponential revenge into exponential forgiveness.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Lord Jesus, help us to see the beauty in the gospel of forgiveness as you have proclaimed it, and liberate us from our wrong ideas about an angry, violent, and retributive God. Amen.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Coveting (which is the engine of capitalism) places us in economic competition with our neighbors and makes it very difficult for us to engage in neighborly love. When we’re in competition with our neighbors it’s hard to love them.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“In the Bible all the saints are sinners.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Jesus is what God has to say. A flat reading of the Bible allows us to proof-text any idea we want, but Jesus is the Word of God. So if Moses says to practice capital punishment and stone certain sinners, Jesus says, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone,” and God says, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!” Or if Elijah calls down fire from heaven to consume the soldiers sent to arrest him, Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” and God says, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“That Jesus is a gardener with a good heart and a green thumb should change your perspective. I promise you that your life is not so blighted that Jesus can’t nurture you into something beautiful. The empty tomb is the open door that leads us away from the ugly world of Gehennas and garbage dumbs and back home to the God-intended garden.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“The cross is not the appeasement of an angry and retributive god. The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as savior. The cross is not what God inflicts upon Jesus in order to forgive, but what God in Christ endures as he forgives. The cross is where the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity so that it might be forgiven en masse. The cross is where the world violently sinned its sins in the body of the Son of God, and where he absorbed it all, praying, “Father, forgive them.” The cross is both ugly and beautiful. It’s as ugly as human sin and as beautiful as divine love—but in the end love and beauty win.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Caesar and all his successors measure greatness by power—power to kill, power to obtain, power to control. But in the kingdom of Christ, greatness is measured by love, humility, and service. Jesus modeled this kingdom version of greatness when he washed his disciples’ feet during the Last Supper.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Mary thought she was anointing Jesus for coronation, but Jesus says she anointed him for burial. Both are true. Jesus is the anointed King, and his coronation did launch the revolution of God’s kingdom, but it also involved the burial of Jesus, because his coronation came by crucifixion and the revolution came by the cross. This is the gospel that is to be proclaimed in all the world.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Now is not the time to sift through the Olivet Discourse looking for signs by which to alarm people about the end of the world. Instead, now is the time for us to be about the good work of being the new temple, the temple of living stones that is the global body of Christ. Now is not the time to focus on Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem—a prediction that came to pass almost two thousand years ago. Now is the time to work with Jesus in the construction of the New Jerusalem.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Jesus’ action of temporarily halting the temple sacrifices during Passover week was highly provocative and extremely dangerous. It was only due to his popularity with the crowds of Passover pilgrims that Jesus wasn’t arrested on Monday. Nevertheless this action accelerated the plot among the chief priests to find a way to arrest Jesus in secret and have him put to death. More than anything else it was his prophetic protest in the temple on Monday that sealed Jesus’ fate. There’s nothing hypocritical religion fears and hates more than bold prophetic action. This is religion at its worst.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“There truly was a time when it could be said that God is dead, because whatever it means for a human being to experience the final dissolution of death, God in Christ has fully experienced. When we speak of Incarnation and Immanuel our minds are immediately drawn to Christmas and the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger. But Christ is never more Immanuel than when he is wrapped in grave clothes lying in the tomb. Yes, Jesus Christ is God with us in birth and life, but he is also God with us in sorrow and death.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Jesus knows what it is to feel forsaken by God, and in his suffering Jesus uttered the bewildered Cry of Dereliction. But in his death Jesus committed his spirit into the hands of the Father he knows will never forsake him. Sometimes when we’ve done all we can do, there’s nothing more to be done than to put everything in the hands of the God who will never abandon us.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“One thief sees in Jesus the possibility of a new kingdom centered in forgiveness and believes. The other thief cannot resist the old satanic way of exporting guilt through blame…but only one response leads to the Paradise of union with Christ.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“I read and interpret the entirety of Scripture from the lofty vantage point of Mount Calvary where Jesus hangs upon a cross with his arms outstretched in proffered embrace imploring forgiveness for his murderers.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Jesus had tried to pull Jerusalem back from its hell-bent ways, but he knew that he had only given Jerusalem a forty-year stay of sentence. Jesus was the green tree who taught and embodied the way of peace and love, yet he was still crucified. The sons of the weeping women of Jerusalem will be the dry wood who will foolishly advocate for the way of war. Jesus is saying that if the Romans can inflict such a fire of suffering on the green tree of peacemaking, what amount of suffering will they kindle in the dry trees of war-waging. Jesus weeps for these women and their children because he knows that Jerusalem is headed for hell—the hell of war.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Finally, the cross re-founds the world. When we see Jesus lifted up on the cross, perfectly displaying the love of God by forgiving the sin of the world, we find the place where human society is reorganized. Instead of a world organized around an axis of power enforced by violence, we discover a world organized around an axis of love expressed in forgiveness. As we gaze long upon the sacred mystery of Christ crucified, we find ourselves being drawn into the saving orbit of love and forgiveness.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“This is the beauty of the body of Christ and why the church is so necessary. Christianity is not a solo project; we can’t go it alone. David couldn’t do it by himself. Elijah couldn’t do it by himself. Even Jesus couldn’t do it by himself. And you can’t do it by yourself. Some days we have the honor of being Simon of Cyrene and helping a brother or sister carry their cross when it has become too much for them. Other days we are the one in need of a Simon of Cyrene. Whether we are helping or being helped, it’s all the grace of God.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“And how Jesus became King on Good Friday is how his Kingdom still comes today. It comes by co-suffering love expressed in forgiveness. It doesn’t come by the Machiavellian machinations of politics or by the blood letting of a battlefield. How the Kingdom of Christ comes into the world has nothing to do with who sits in the White House or with who runs the Pentagon.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“The crowd that gathers on Good Friday shouting, “Give us Barabbas!,” is far more plausible and numerous than most of us imagine. If we think that killing our enemies is compatible with Christian ethics, we are in effect saying, “Give us Barabbas!”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“It’s not sin that disqualifies us as disciples of Jesus, but quitting. Peter denied Jesus, but he didn’t quit, and he was forgiven and restored. Judas betrayed Jesus…and hung himself. Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and Peter’s denial of Jesus were not categorically different sins; they may have differed in culpability, but they were similar. If Peter could be forgiven and restored, so could Judas.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“And what we don’t find in the parable is just as significant. There is no appeasement theology. The father doesn’t first rush to the servants’ quarters to beat a whipping boy and satisfy his wrath before he can forgive his wayward son. No! In the story of the prodigal son, the father bears the loss and forgives his son from his treasury of inexhaustible love. He just forgives. There is no payment, there is no appeasement. Justice as punishment is what the resentful brother called justice. Justice as reconciliation is what the loving father called justice. The only wrath we find in the parable belongs to the Pharisee-like older brother, not the God-like father.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey

“Was Judas trying to force Jesus to resort to violence and start the war for Jewish independence? I think so. The reason Judas greeted Jesus with the customary kiss (which was also a covert sign) is that Judas didn’t so much want to betray Jesus as he wanted to manipulate Jesus. Judas wanted to provoke Jesus into launching a violent revolution. Judas wanted to remain a part of the inner circle of disciples following a now violent Jesus. Judas acted like he was still a faithful disciple because Judas wanted to be a faithful disciple—but only on his own terms. Judas didn’t want to betray Jesus, he wanted to control Jesus. Judas wanted Jesus to be Messiah in a certain way—violent. When we try to make Jesus be the kind of king who will support our political agenda through violent power, we betray Jesus with a kiss.”
― Brian Zahnd, The Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten Journey