I could never believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I turn to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross—nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged into God-forsaken darkness. He set aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death.
John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ;