“Conflict plays a large part in the Gospel narratives of the ministry of Jesus…Jesus is shown in conflict with Satan (Mt 12:28)…with natural calamities likes storms…with mental illnesses…with religious leaders of his people…with the crowds he draws…with his family…with his disciples…and he is in conflict with his own instinctive clinging to life…when it comes in the way of his Father’s will. Conflict, then, is not a secondary dispensable element in the ministry of Jesus; it is of its essence. Not for Jesus the ecstasy of the frolicking Krishna who is beyond all conflict, nor the serene smile of the Buddha who is wholly untouched by it. His is a short and agitated ministry, ending in a violent and untimely death.”
George M. Soares-Prabhu, The Dharma of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2003), p. 164.
