The voices and the wisdom from the suffering Church
“In the suffering, every one of us has to go through at various stages of life, God also suffers. And in Jesus Christ, we witness how God is part of human suffering. The cross, from the standpoint of human faith, is the supreme symbol of God’s suffering love. Suffering is the cross God has to bear with all creation.” – C S Song
“The Cross of Christ has therefore two chief values. In the first place, it has a value in time. Then the Cross has also a value in space. These values are eternal principles for us. Those who are too selfish, and too absorbed in their own satisfactions cannot understand the meaning of the Cross. But for those who are striving to make society flawless in every aspect, the Cross is a universal principle.” – Kagawa Toyohiko
“The central symbolism of the Christian faith, the cross, does not give us an image of a bridge. It is the point at which people meet. It is an image of an intersection. The cross stands for encounter and conflict and painful solution. It points to the place where we must stop. Why stop? Because it is there that love is expressed.” – Kosuke Koyama
“Everything hinges on the Christ of the cross. The fact of the cross is the axiom of theological thought. It is impossible to think about the gospel if we have the slightest hesitation on this point. The essence of God can be comprehended only from the ‘word of the cross.” – Kazoh Kitamori
“The Cross of Jesus Christ knows “no compromise, no expediency, and no opportunism.” The Cross is then “a sign of the adventurous and revolutionary spirit of righteousness.” The most important fact is that on the cross Jesus has triumphed over the way of the world.” – T C Chao
“God and man are reconciled at the foot of the Cross alone. The result is submission: “the self becomes real only as it takes its stand in the right relationship to God at the point where God acted, the Cross of Christ. The Cross is the fact of history, not achieved, derived or proved by reason.” – D T Niles
“In Jesus’ time, the Cross was a symbol of shame and to take up one’s cross meant to stand on the side of the oppressed in society. True discipleship, then requires one to model oneself on Jesus’ life-giving ministries in solidarity with the outcast of society.” – Hisako Kinukawa
“The Cross of Jesus is also the answer to the human problem of justification of human existence. Responding in faith to the free Divine forgiveness and acceptance offered by the Crucified, man is released from the necessity to seek security and justification by his own spirituality and moral/ social idealism.” – M M Thomas
“On the Cross, Jesus brings out in the most vivid manner his double ascesis that constitutes the salvific path – the via crucis – namely, his renunciation of possessions and his denunciation of mammon.” – Aloysius Pieris
“After the Cross, the Resurrection takes place. So the Cross must also refer to hope, hope to respect people’s release from suffering. All human attempts to look to the future need to be understood within this framework of hope.” – Dr Andreas Anangguru Yewangoe
“The Cross means dying to private dreams in order to participate in the vision of the kingdom of God. The understanding of the Cross is rooted in the historical event of Jesus’s life and ministry and his followers.” – Dr Arata Miyamoto
“The Cross is seen as a symbol of intense suffering. It is understood as an establishment of Messianic solidarity with Minjung suffering through Jesus’ participation in historical suffering. The suffering of Jesus must be understood politically and historically.” – Dr Kim Yong Bock
“The Cross means dying to private dreams in order to participate in the vision of the kingdom of God. The understanding of the Cross is rooted in the historical event of Jesus’s life and ministry and his followers.” – Dr Arata Miyamoto
“The Cross is seen as a symbol of intense suffering. It is understood as an establishment of Messianic solidarity with Minjung suffering through Jesus’ participation in historical suffering. The suffering of Jesus must be understood politically and historically.” – Dr Kim Yong Bock
“Jesus Christ was the pioneer of suffering. Called the suffering servant, he confronted and struggled with suffering regularly and overcame it even on the Cross. As marginal people, we are called to join in the suffering of Jesus Christ. Our suffering can be overcome through the Cross.” – Dr Jung Young Lee
“The Cross is the pivotal symbol of Christianity. The Cross reveals God as the passionate loving God who exists by an infinite self-giving and reciprocal sacrifice of love and suffers in solidarity with the marginalized, the victimized and the dehumanized.” – Dr Hye Kyung Heo
“The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus are meant to show how the power of evil and tragedy in human life is conquered by love. Through the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, there is hope for perfection, not in a return to the old, but in the creation of the new. This is the saving work of Christ.” – Stanley J Samartha
