How to [Not] Defend a Lion--January 18, 2023

How to [Not] Defend a Lion--January 18, 2023

"Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near." [Philippians 4:5]

Did you ever wonder what words come to mind when other people think of you? Did you ever spend a moment considering what traits, what adjectives, what mental pictures, come to mind when the people who know you give you a thought?

And, now that we’re going down that trail anyway, have you ever given thought to what words you would want to come to mind when your friends, your family, and your co-workers hear your name mentioned? I’m not talking about pretending or puffing yourself up to be something you are not, but honestly, what traits about yourself to you think rise to the surface? When other insightful, perceptive people around you read your life like a book, what kind of book is it?

I ask because Paul has an answer for what he would wish to be toward the top of the list for followers of Jesus. And frankly, it is not always (or even often) at the top of ours. Paul wishes that we Christians would be known for our gentleness--for our kindness. And for him, that gentleness is connected with his firm belief that Christ is coming again soon. “The Lord is near,” Paul says, and so therefore, we are to “let your gentleness be known to everyone.” In other words, he is saying, Live your life in such a way that when people think of you, at the top of their description is, “Oh my, what a gentle soul!” Because after all, Jesus’ coming is near.

That is not often how Christians act, to be honest. All too often, our reputation is not for being gentle, but for being, among other things, hypocritical, angry, critical, dour, sour-faced, or whiny. “Gentle” does not often crack the top ten, and "kind" isn't always the impression church folk leave from their social media posts, if we are going to be truthful about things. And especially when “religious” people get to talking about Christ coming again, we often sound especially vitriolic and angry. Listen for very long to the religious voices on TV and radio as they talk about the world going to hell in a handbasket and how “true believers” (meaning people who believe exactly like them) won’t have to worry about the disasters happening on earth because they’ll be watching the carnage from the safety of their seats in some heavenly loge while others get “left behind.” (Never mind for a moment that the whole notion of a secret whisking away of believers is a misreading of the New Testament—that whole “rapture” business is a conversation for another day.)

At any rate, when the watching world thinks about the supposedly Christian voices they know, and especially when those voices are talking about Jesus’ coming again, they don’t usually think of us being “gentle” or "kind," but often rather bloodthirsty-sounding, and using the talk of Jesus’ coming as something frighten people into faith with—as if it were possible to scare someone into salvation.

And yet, there’s Paul, who has the return of Jesus at the forefront of his mind, and he pictures Christians being known for their gentleness in light of how “near” the Lord is. It’s funny, almost, that Paul doesn’t feel any need at all for himself, or for any of the rest of us Christians, to get defensive or bitter or ornery or to play the victim-card, as he thinks about Jesus’ coming. He really seems to think that—in light of Jesus’ imminent return—the best thing for Christians to be known for is not our end-times diagrams or our religious scare-tactics, but our way of being gentle with others.

It sort of reminds me of the old saying: How do you defend a lion? You just get out of its way. If there is a lion threatened by poachers, let’s say, you don’t need to stick yourself in the situation and put up your fists trying to make yourself look tough for the lion’s sake. The lion is going to be just fine all by itself. The lion has the power to take defend itself—you can just let it make the call about how or when to use it. And you, in the meantime, can be calm and at ease and relaxed. Or to use Paul’s word for it, gentle.

For us, the followers of Jesus, our hope in Jesus’ coming again means that we don’t have to get ourselves bent out of shape in angry tirades trying to come to Jesus’ defense. He’s the lion—he doesn’t need our fists. And frankly, our attempts to “defend” him probably get in his way more often than not.

Instead, we are called to be witnesses of Christ—yes, the Christ for whom we are waiting to come in glory and triumph—through our gentleness. We are called to point to Christ in the ways our kindness can lessen the anxiety in the room—or at least, not add to it! We are called to be examples of Christ in the ways we can sit in quiet with others in those holy, vulnerable moments of life. We are called to be living pointers to Christ in the way we just “show up” for others when they need us, without making a fanfare or a fuss over ourselves.

And there is a reason for all of this, a reason that we do not need to get ourselves all worked up and tense and harsh for Christ, even besides the fact that the only way to defend a lion is to get out of its way. And the reason is this: even though Jesus is the Lion (indeed, even “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” as the book of Revelation calls him), he is also ultimately “the Lamb who was slain.” And in the scene from Revelation where the voice calls out, “Hey everybody, look, it’s the Lion!” everybody turns their heads, and there is no one there but a Lamb, having been slain, but alive again (see Revelation 5 on this subject). The Lion is announced, but it is a gentle Lamb who shows up, because Jesus’ way of being victorious is through his gentle self-sacrifice and suffering love. We are supposed to be gentle, because the One we are waiting for saves and reigns and rules through gentleness, too.  We are called to practice kindness, because the One for whom we hope has shown kindness to us.

So… what will people remember about you today, do you suppose? When they think about the fact that you are associated with this Jesus person, what words will come to mind to describe you? And can we dare today to represent--not defend--the living Christ, in our own peaceable love? Can we dare to be so bold as to be known for our gentleness?

Lord Jesus, let our lives today be reflections of your own peaceable, suffering love and your gentle reign.