Tuesday's quote

There is a chapter in this book from which I didn't extract any quotes, but that is only because the whole chapter was good. I highly recommend the book, if only for the chapter lying between pages 52 and 97. It gives excellent insight into people who have lived their lives in a postmodern culture from youth on—unlike old folgies like me :)

“Jesus has instructed his friends on many occasions to devote their lives, as a matter of priority, to the service of others. Here, at this final meal with his friends, he tells them the story of his purpose for coming: not only to live in order to serve others, but also to face death, as we all must. This death, however, will be different. It will be for, and on behalf of, others. It will be an intended death but not one born out of the inability to continue with a life lived in the absence of coherent ontology or lacking in mutual, undistorted, unpolluted relationship. This is not a putting to death of the self, either literally or metaphorically, because Jesus is suffering an entire and absolute collapse of the self or because he fears that his real self will be exposed. Paradoxically, his intent to die will ultimately prove his narrative and ontological coherence. His willingness to go to the cross at Golgotha will be in continuity with his story and due to the very fact that he lives with the constant presence of the mutual, undistorted, unpolluted relationship.”— Atonement for a "Sinless" Society, pp. 111-112