No Exit

Jesus proclaimed that the reign of God in the world was about to begin. To a people innocent of our distinction between political and spiritual expectations, and nurtured on an indivisible religio-political hope, the proclamation of Jesus must have had a political ring. If we call this a misunderstanding, we must also say that this misunderstanding was necessarily accepted by Jesus as inevitable, and in that sense part of the gospel proclamation as it actually took place. For Jesus did not speak in a vacuum, as most of his followers have been content to do.... As the conflict intensifies it becomes universal and involves you and me. The contention of this book is that this involvement of us will not take place with the finality which we call the word of God until, by a great effort of imagination, we have understood the impossibility of Jesus for the men who had to grapple with him. Then things begin to happen. Then we begin to know this man who refuses every description, every word, except that unspeakable word in which we ourselves are laid bare. ---- from book's text