We kill the peacemakers

Ironically, then, the one who seeks peacefully to bring good news to all will be perceived as, and eventually crucified as, bad news—a threat to peace and security. This is, paradoxically, both true and false. On the one hand, because Jesus’ way of the cross, in all its counterintuitive and countercultural dimensions, challenges the very notion of Roman peace and power to its core, that Roman “peace” and power will have to deal with the threat. On the other hand, the very thing Rome needs in order to have true peace and security is the nonviolent, topsy-turvy power of God that arrives in Jesus. He is, in other words, both Rome’s problem and Rome’s solution.— The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, page 179