Do you remember this character from the movie The Green Mile?  Do you remember the various ways in which the movie portrayed his mammoth strength, his colossus–like proportions, his all–around giganticness? 

Yet, as I search for a contemporary way to illustrate what the Bible means by “meekness,” I don’t think I can do much better.  This man was meek.

One film reviewer, while describing this character, said: “meekness is something other than wimpiness.  His care for others shows gentleness to be force under control.”

Meekness is perhaps best defined as “strength tempered with humility.”

You have to be strong in order to be meek.  A weak person is not meek.  Never can be.  Only a strong person can be meek.  Only a strong person can use their strength, their might, their power in order to humbly serve another.  That’s meekness:  not using great strength to “lord it over people,” but using great strength to humbly serve people.

Numbers 12 says that Moses was “very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.” Why is this so?  Because God had invested great power, great authority, and great strength in Moses, and Moses did not use these things to exalt himself, but rather to humbly serve others.

Or consider the meekness of King Jesus.  Indeed, here is where the beauty of meekness shines most compellingly. 

Christ is eternal.  Sovereign.  God the Son.  The Royal King.  The Rightful Heir of All Things.  He has Absolute Power.  He is The Promised One who will Sit on the Throne of the Universe!

And yet, as the song says, when the Omnipotent King arrived, “Gentle Mary laid her child lowly in a manger.” He was born in a stable.  No room in the inn.  Wrapped up and placed in a feed box for animals.  Surrounded by poverty, flies, and other things you might expect to find in a place full of animals. 

Why?  Because of his meekness.  God Himself came in ALL of his power, not to be served but to serve.  He came to suffer for you and then give his life as a ransom for you. 

This is strength tempered with humility.  This is strength being used to exalt and serve others.  This is the very strength of God rescuing you from sin and death.  As the Apostle Paul would later say, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

Are you meek?  The Strong–Yet–Meek King calls his subjects to follow him, exercising all of their strength, power and authority to humbly serve others.  And it is the meek, he promises, who “shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5.5).

The haughty may boast and exalt themselves.  The godless may throw their weight around in the pursuit of their own selfish agenda.  But this world belongs to Christ, and he gives it to the meek. 

The way of Christ is not like the ways of this world. 

“In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.  But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.”
—King David, Psalm 37