the (maybe)daily bailey

“Without this divine knowledge, how could we help feeling either exalted or dejected? The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these twin vices, not by using one to expel the other according to worldly wisdom, but by expelling both through the simplicity of the gospel. For it teaches the righteous that they still bear the source of all corruption which exposes them throughout their lives to error, misery, death, and sin; and [yet] it cries out to the most ungodly that they are capable of the grace of the Redeemer. Thus, making those who it justifies to tremble, yet consoling those whom it condemns, it so nicely tempers fear with home through this dual capacity… Grace and sin! It causes infinitely more dejection than mere reason - but without despair, and infinitely more exaltation than natural pride - but without puffing us up.”

- Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won… If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense - [then] it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world - news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn’t just about warming our hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things - and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all. Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzche probably was right to say it was for wimps.”

- N.T. Wright on the Resurrection