It's a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That's where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.
But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the shift from a distant relationship with God to a personal connection through Jesus.
Bono's quote reflects on the evolution of the relationship between humanity and the divine as depicted in the Bible. In the Old Testament, the relationship is characterized by reverence and worship, symbolizing a vertical connection to God. In contrast, the New Testament presents Jesus as a familiar figure, representing a horizontal relationship that allows for personal access and connection. The interplay of these dimensions is embodied in the symbol of the Cross, which bridges the two forms of connection.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
A sermon on the significance of personal faith in Jesus.
More from Bono
All quotes →Perspective is the cure for depression.
At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.
It's much easier to be successful than it is to be relevant. The tricks won't keep you relevant. Tricks might keep you popular for a while, but in all honesty, I don't know how U2 will stay relevant. I know we've got a future. I know we can fill stadiums. And yet with every record, I think, 'Is this it? Are we still relevant?'
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.
Hanging out with politicians and corporations is very unhip work. But I think that the U2 audience have turned out to be incredibly subtle in their understanding.
Similar quotes
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man That function is smothered in surmise, And nothing is but what is not.
But there is a light that goes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behind it: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another's - not the Shadow's. Into the created can pour itself the creating will, and so redeem it!
Wherever people feel safe — they will be indifferent.
Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people.
Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone.
The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.