The outcome of Jesus’ arrest and trial was that brute force killed him in what appeared to be a triumph for the powers of evil. Yet that triumph of evil was limited and momentary.

As the Gospels recount the story, three days later Mary Magdalene and other women, and then the disciples found an empty tomb, which they accepted as a sign that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

In the living Jesus the reign of God displayed its power over the ultimate enemy—death—and thus over the worst that evil could do, namely deny Jesus his existence.

When the last enemy was overcome in the person of the living, resurrected Christ, a new era had begun in the reign of God in history.

from The Nonviolent Atonement