Blessed are the meek

Dear Jesus,

“Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” I don’t think I know the first thing about what it means to be meek. I know – people loved to say, “she sure is a meek child” when I was a kid, but now, I don’t even think meek is used in conversation, and I still don’t know what it means.

The dictionary says this,

having or showing a quiet and gentle nature : not wanting to fight or argue with other people

1. enduring injury with patience and without resentment

2. deficient in spirit and courage

3. not violent or strong

This definition did not totally jive with me because you were not deficient in spirit or in courage, nor do you ask your people not to be courageous. Somehow I think in your terms meek has a different meaning than all that is encapsulated here.

However, I love the definition that says, “enduring injury with patience and without resentment.” That describes your whole life – to be the one and only God and to submit yourself to humanity by becoming a man? It sounds like a whole lot of injury to me. You grew in a mother’s belly. What was that even like? Did you know you were there? Did you hear Mary’s voice while in her womb? Did being fully God mean you had an awareness of things that others didn’t? Was there some point when you were just a baby or boy and then the Spirit of God rested on you, and then you were God-man?

I wonder what you were like as a baby. Did you cry much? or were you gentle and submissive to Mary’s voice? were you an easy and “good” baby? As you can see, I’ve gotten sidetracked with questions that need not be answered. I imagine you were maybe a little bit unusual as a child. Did Mary and Joseph treat you different? Did they always remember you as the Christ? or sometimes just another son? Did you get special treatment? Did your brothers treat you like the Joseph of Genesis’s brother’s did? Were they jealous? Did they let you take the lead when your dad disappeared?

It is not as if you didn’t know all the pain you would have to endure. Even though I don’t know the technical details of how it worked – you becoming a man and all, I know that you knew full well what you were stepping into and all the pain of just living that you would endure. Then you endured the worst death. Oh, sweet Jesus, my Savior, you were meek, all right.

I even decided to look in my key word bible to see what the original word was, and in the Greek the word is “praus” meaning gentle, mild, humble, meek. In the Key Word Bible Dictionary, it says this,

In the NT it expresses a meekness which differs from the usual connotation of the word in English. According to Aristotle, it is the middle standing between two extremes, getting angry without reason, and not getting angry at all. It is the result of a strong man’s choice to control his reactions in submission to God. It is a balance born in strength of character, stemming from confident trust in God, not from weakness or fear.

Meek does not equal weak. And yet you came both meek and weak as a baby. As a man, there is not a greater picture of “a strong man’s choice to control his reactions in submission to God.”

Jesus, I think about how you called down your very mother and brothers and said that your mother and brothers were the ones who do the will of the Father in Heaven. You were not afraid to be all God created you to be and you were not afraid to teach others to do the same.

Maybe I am more meek than I think, but I certainly ask you to teach me to be meek. It is scary to ask that. I found this quote on the Christianity Today website when I started thinking about being meek…

THERE IS radiant meekness in Mary’s response to the archangel Gabriel: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me just as you have said” (Luke 1:38). … In all its meekness, no other act in human history has had such significance. Through Mary, our Creator became one with us in the flesh.
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes

When I think about Christmas, help me to remember the meek. to be meek. to inspire others to be meek.

for they will inherit the earth.

Seeking meekness,

Jamie