Spirituality: The nonviolence of Jesus

The absolute violence Jesus lived, and that he also demanded of his followers, resulted in powerlessness, to the point of apparent impotence. Jesus’s powerlessness relies entirely on God and God's saving intervention, and for that very reason it is stronger than all weapons, all forms of violence, any and every need to overpower others. 

Jesus’s battle against the powers of death did not culminate in his avoiding death but in his complete surrender to human violence, to the point of utter helplessness. 

Gerhard Lohfink, Is This All There is? P. 111