The Surprising Power of Gentleness
Good Morning Friends,
Christians confess that Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Scripture points us toward a day when evil will finally be confronted, injustice will be put right, death will be defeated, and God’s good creation will be restored. The King who once came quietly will come again, and his kingdom will be fully revealed. But that raises an important question: What kind of King are we waiting for? When we hear words like Second Coming, judgment, and kingdom, we may imagine overwhelming displays of power. Psalm 2 pictures God’s anointed King ruling the nations. Psalm 110 pictures the Lord’s chosen King victorious over every enemy. Isaiah 40–55 announces that Israel’s God is returning to reign, end the exile, renew his covenant, and bring about new creation. So perhaps we expect thunder. Yet when God actually comes among us, something astonishing happens.The Creator becomes a servant. The Word becomes flesh. The King becomes a Sower. The Word becomes a Seed. The Judge bears judgment himself. The Lord of life dies, rises, and conquers death. The first coming, therefore, teaches us how to understand the second. Jesus’ return does not mean that the gentle Jesus will someday be replaced by an angry Jesus. The One who comes to judge is the same One who was crucified for sinners. His judgment is the final expression of his determination to set right everything that sin and death have disordered. The gentleness of Jesus is not the absence of power. It reveals what God’s power is actually like. And perhaps this explains why the disciples were so often clueless. They believed the Messiah would come to power. They simply didn’t understand how God exercises power. And I wonder if we do either. Before asking what Christ’s return will look like, perhaps we need to look again at what happened when the King came the first time. Because the surprising answer to “What does it look like when Jesus comes to power?” begins not with an army marching into battle, but with a Sower walking into a field carrying seed. And the seed is the Word.
Scripture Summaries:
Isaiah 40–55 announces that Israel’s exile is ending because Israel’s God is returning as King. The Creator who calls the stars by name will make a highway through the wilderness, accomplish a new Exodus, establish a renewed covenant, and ultimately renew creation itself. Yet God’s victory comes through an astonishing figure: the Servant who establishes justice without crushing the weak and who triumphs through suffering.
Psalms 2 and 110 envision God’s anointed King ruling the nations and defeating the powers opposed to God’s purposes.
John 1 takes us back even further, to Genesis: “In the beginning.” The Word through whom creation came into being has entered creation. The Creator has become flesh and moved into the neighborhood.
Mark 4 gives us one of Jesus’ strangest pictures of God’s kingdom. The victorious King is like a farmer scattering seed. And Jesus identifies the seed as the Word.
Message: Don’t you wonder how God will become King if He is already ruling? Maybe we need to look at scripture with fresh eyes. Isaiah 40–55 begins with one of the great announcements of Scripture: Israel’s long exile is ending. God is coming back.
The Creator and covenant-keeping God returns to his people; the Servant suffers and is vindicated; covenant is renewed; and ultimately creation itself is renewed. These themes reach their climax in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. But Isaiah presents us with a mystery. If Psalm 2 declares that God’s Messiah will rule the nations, and Psalm 110 pictures God’s King reigning over his enemies, what will it actually look like when this King comes to power? Perhaps Israel expected thunder. Jesus brought seed. Perhaps they expected armies. Jesus gathered fishermen. Perhaps they expected Caesar to be defeated by a greater Caesar. Instead, Jesus touched lepers, welcomed sinners, forgave enemies, washed feet, and told stories about farmers scattering seed. The power of God arrived as the power of gentleness. Isaiah had already hinted at this strange kingdom: A bruised reed he will not break. God’s Servant doesn’t establish justice by crushing broken people. He restores them. And that may explain one of the great puzzles of the Gospels: Why Were the Disciples So Clueless? They knew the Scriptures. They knew the royal Psalms. They believed God would establish his kingdom. Their problem wasn’t that they expected too much from Jesus. They expected the wrong kind of power. They imagined God’s Messiah defeating Israel’s enemies. Jesus was preparing to defeat the deeper enemies of sin, evil, and death. They expected a throne. Jesus spoke about a cross. They expected the Messiah to take power. Jesus knelt down and washed their feet. And when Jesus explained the kingdom in Mark 4, he didn’t describe an advancing army. He described a seed disappearing into the soil. That image brings us straight to John. “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word through whom Genesis happened becomes flesh. Creation’s Creator steps inside his creation. And then the Word does something extraordinary: The Word becomes the Seed. The Sower scatters the Word into the world. Some reject it. Some receive it superficially. Some allow competing loves to choke it. But somewhere the Word takes root. And then, almost invisibly, new creation begins. Isaiah had promised precisely this connection. God’s Word goes out and does not return empty, and the result is creation bursting into celebration. Mountains sing. Trees clap their hands. Thorns give way to flourishing life. That is the new covenant. God isn’t merely giving humanity another set of instructions. God is planting his Word within us. And brings us to the realization that the Cross is not the failure of God’s Kingdom.
This takes us to the deepest mystery of Isaiah 40–55. How will the victorious Servant succeed? And it is by suffering. Jesus therefore doesn’t contradict Psalms 2 and 110. He redefines what divine victory looks like. On the cross, the King is enthroned in weakness. The hands that created the universe do not grasp at power. They open themselves in love. And resurrection reveals that this gentleness was not weakness after all. It was God’s power operating at a deeper level.The seed falls into the earth. And resurrection happens. New creation begins.
And So, are we clueless too? Probably more often than we realize. We still look for God where the world tells us power resides: political influence, cultural dominance, money, numbers, celebrity, control. But Jesus keeps scattering the seed. Someone forgives. Someone serves unnoticed. Someone welcomes the lonely. Someone speaks truth without hatred. Someone cares for the weak. Someone makes a disciple. Someone loves an enemy. And we wonder, “Is that really how God’s kingdom comes?” The disciples wondered too. Perhaps our greatest temptation isn’t failing to believe that Jesus is King. It is believing Jesus is King while still imagining power the way Caesar imagined it. Isaiah offers another vision. The Creator becomes the Servant. The Word becomes flesh. The King becomes the Sower. The Word becomes Seed. The Servant gives his life. And the crucified King rises. That is what it looks like when Jesus comes to power. And perhaps the question for disciples today isn’t simply, “Do I believe Jesus is King?” It is: Am I willing to trust the gentle way in which my King chooses to reign?
So, this morning we are to reflect on where we are still expecting God to work through force, control, influence, or spectacular success. Consider what seemingly small seed of God’s Word might Jesus be asking us to plant today. Perhaps the gentle, patient work of loving God, loving others, and making disciples can be more powerful than I imagine.
Pray to our Creator and Covenant-Keeping God, that we will confess that, like the disciples, we often misunderstand your power. Pray we confess that we look for strength in the places the world tells us to look even when it comes to your return. Pray You open our eyes to Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Servant King who conquered through self-giving love. Pray You plant your Word deeply within us. Pray You break up the hard soil of our hearts, remove the thorns that choke our faith, and make our lives fruitful soil for your new creation. Pray You teach us to trust the gentle power of your kingdom and faithfully scatter its seeds until the day when every corner of creation rejoices that Jesus Christ is King. Amen.
Blessings,
John Lawson
