This week we will continue to explore 7 ways Jesus showed love, love that we can seek to replicate to those around us.

4. Gentleness

The next day, when the large crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him. They kept shouting:

“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord —the King of Israel!”
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written:
Do not be afraid,
Daughter Zion. Look, your King is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt.
John 12:12-15

So, I want to be honest here, I have a bit of a thing about the way that Jesus is portrayed as being loving mainly through gentleness and meekness. If you Google ‘Jesus’ most, if not all of the images it returns in 0.00034 seconds, are of a Jesus that looks so meek and mild, timid and watery eyed that I just look and dismiss them as nonsense. 

When I consider Jesus’ gentleness as love, I think of strength, courage, integrity and the ability to not conform to the world’s agenda but stay the path. 

This moment of Jesus entering Jerusalem is really profound. The expectation was for a messiah or savour to liberate the Jewish nation living under Roman rule and culture. A warrior on a white stallion to march in and blaze a trail, lead a revolution and set the people free with force and fire if needed. 

But what’s that? The clip clop of a donkey! 

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord —the King of Israel!”

Can you imagine the scene, the servant king arriving? Just before this the bible records that as Jesus looked to Jerusalem, at the last moment in his life and mission, he set his face like flint. 

Resolve, focus, heart and grit but fused with gentleness and the heart of a servant doing what his father had willed. 

The gentle heart and spirit but fused to strength, focus and courage. 

Image Credit: Jon Tyson