“But in the passion Jesus is a rejected Messiah. His rejection robs the passion of its halo of glory. It must be a passion without honor. Suffering and rejection sum up the whole cross of Jesus. To die on the cross means to die despised and rejected of men.”

“… a suffering Messiah was a scandal to the church… that is not the kind of Lord it wants, and as the church of Christ it does not like to have the law of suffering imposed upon it by its Lord.”

“To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him and who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. “

“… for the cup of suffering will indeed pass from him — but only by drinking it. That is the assurance he receives as he kneels for the second time in the garden of Gethsemane that suffering will indeed pass as he accepts it.”