Jesus' death was seen by Jesus himself ... as the ultimate means by which God's kingdom was established. The crucifixion was the shocking answer to the prayer that God's kingdom would come on earth as in heaven.
N. T. WrightThe gospel is not itself about you are this sort of a person and this can happen to you. That's the result of the gospel rather than the gospel itself.
N. T. WrightWhen we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves--that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience.
N. T. Wright