[Christ] is weak and powerless in the...

[Christ] is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matthew 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering. . . . That is a reversal of what the religious man expects from God. Man is summoned to share in God’s sufferings at the hands of a godless world.