IN a book of devotions that he has written, John MacArthur writes as follows: “A popular bumper-sticker says; ‘Don’t get mad, get even.’ People demand what they perceive to be their rights, no matter how the demand harms others. More and more violent crimes are committed each year. We need a strong dose of Biblical truth to cure these attitudes. The Biblical solution is gentleness.”
MacArthur makes a powerful point. Mind you, I think that most of the world will disagree.
Gentleness, even though it is listed as a fruit of the Spirit, does not seem to be an attractive quality in the age in which we live.
Instead of gentleness, it seems that more people look up to a strong and forceful character in people, and especially in leaders.
People who stand up for themselves, who do not easily give in are often more admired than people who just seem to give in to almost everything.
I wonder if that is because we have a faulty view of what gentleness is? Gentleness is not powerlessness or weakness.
Gentleness does not mean giving in to everything and everyone. Coming back to MacArthur again, he says: “Gentleness is power under control. The circus lion has the same power as the lion running free in Africa, but it has been tamed. All its energy in under the control of its master. In the same way, the lion that lives in the gentle person no longer seeks its own ends or desires, but it is submissive to its Master. The lion has not been destroyed, just tempered.”
Jesus would have to be the ultimate picture of gentleness.
We have just entered into what some call ‘holy week,’ the week leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
We see Jesus might power in this week. The soldiers came to get him, and Peter, in a somewhat foolish attempt to try and save Jesus, cuts off the ear off a man with his sword.
Jesus, with power, picks up the severed ear, and restores it.
But though he has the power to call in all the legions of heaven, he doesn’t, and with gentleness accompanies the soldiers to face the high priest, Herod and Pilate, and ultimately to face the cross on which he was to suffer and die.
Like Christ, Christians are called to display gentleness. We need to do it when we discipline our children, staff or church members.
We need to do it in the way we run the country, or play sport, or the way we run our businesses.
Gentleness is a fruit we learn when we look at Jesus. It is a fruit, that like all other fruit, we need the Holy Spirit.
We need wisdom from above. We can be strong, and still be gentle. We can be principled, and still be gentle.
We can speak up against violence, injustice and all other sin, and still be gentle.
But we can only be gentle when we look for and receive that wisdom from above, which, as James says, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering and without hypocrisy.
A nation or community of gentle men and gentle women is crucial to godliness, and it will reflect positively not only on ourselves but on the God whom we claim to follow.
How great it will be to live among a people who are full of the spiritual fruit of gentleness.
There are so many people who are so broken and wounded in our society. Every time I read the paper, or hear the news, I learn of more wounded and broken people.
Victims of violence or abuse. Such people need to be heard, helped and comforted with a spirit of gentleness.
Gentleness opens the door to healing and reconciliation. When we display this fruit of gentleness, wounded and broken people are enabled to see something of the love and character of God in us.
Let us pray that more and more we will become a nation of gentle people, and let us have the courage to pray that the change towards gentleness will start with ourselves.
REV. KEVIN RIETVELD
(Rev. Kevin Rietveld is Director of Short Workshops In Mission (SWIM), a mission arm of the Christian Reformed Churches of Australia that is supporting local churches here)
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