Last Sunday, I preached from Matthew 28 and John 20. The premise of the sermon was that while the Resurrection changes everything, Jesus remains the same. The Jesus who went into the tomb on Friday is the same Jesus who walked out – literally the same body, the same upside-down approach to kingdom building, and the same tender heart towards the downcast and broken.

In the last point, I leaned into the personal – if you are brokenhearted, grieving, confused, fearful, or sad, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who calls you by name and offers his peace. Our risen and triumphant Jesus is every bit as humble and gentle as the Jesus we read about in the gospels.

I think that was the right way to end that sermon. But I was wrestling with taking it in a different direction. Instead of applying it to us personally, as in “come to the tender-hearted Jesus,” we could take it as a call to action.

As Jesus’ ambassadors on earth, representing his kingdom and his values, we must emulate his humility and gentleness. Christian, look for those who are downcast, dejected, on the fringes, suffering, oppressed, weeping, and follow Jesus by extending his love and compassion. This is every bit as important an application as the one I made on Sunday. And, I could argue, even more pressing.

Of Jesus it was said, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” (Isaiah 42:3). There are versions of evangelical Christianity that have seemingly cut these words from their Bible, who treat gentleness as ‘wokeness’, ‘weakness’, ‘softness’, ‘feminine Christianity’, or the like. Are Christians called to be wimps? No. Never. But gentleness is not something to be shunned; it is a fruit of the Spirit – the Spirit who is actively making Christians more like their gentle and humble Lord.