Gentleness
Saturday August 29th. We had been two weeks away from home. Planes, ferries, borders and now one last trip back up Hwy 97. We had made some sweet memories with our family of six and my extended family celebrating my parents’ 50th anniversary.
But on the road out of Cache Creek and up into 70 Mile House: raised voices, tension, a few unrepeatable words and the kids just quietly getting out of the way of mom and dad.
Oh, and I’m preparing a sermon on “gentleness” in the back seat.
In my quiet, seething anger, the irony did not escape me. We did forgive and make up before we got home. And after some unpacking and laundry I did settle into my desk and sermon process.
But I couldn’t quite shake not just the irony, but also the hypocrisy, whether it was in me or from the enemy: Oh, you are preaching on gentleness, are you?
And then it happened. Between the music in my headphones, the books, articles, and commentaries across my computer screen, the Spirit of Jesus arrived in a tangible way.
I broke. I repented. What broke me in the moment was the very truth I was trying to communicate. Jesus, gentle and lowly, meek and humble, was beckoning me. What was there to hide? What front could I put up? I was, I am, guilty as charged. He was, He is, ready to receive and forgive.
This is not cheap love, but deep love. The dept is paid for in blood and my perceived exile and distance was but a foolish game.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:28-29
If you were there for the sermon (or listen here) you will recall I quoted from Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers:
“Meek. Humble. Gentle. Jesus is not trigger-happy. Not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger but open arms.”
“He doesn’t handle us roughly. He doesn’t scowl and scold. He doesn’t lash out, the way many of our parents did. And all this restraint on his part is not because he has a diluted view of our sinfulness. He knows our sinfulness far more deeply than we do. Indeed, we are aware of just the tip of the iceberg of our depravity, even in our most searching moments of self-knowledge. His restraint simply flows from his tender heart for his people.”
“What helium does to a balloon, Jesus’s yoke does to his followers. We are buoyed along in life by his endless gentleness and supremely accessible lowliness. He doesn’t simply meet us at our place of need; he lives in our place of need.”
“The point in saying that Jesus is lowly is that he is accessible. For all his resplendent glory and dazzling holiness, his supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ.”
“With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resumé items that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required—first at conversion and a thousand times thereafter until w are with him upon death.”