Gentle and Lowly: Chapters Three and Four

Hopefully you’re joining in on our Karis Church One Read through Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund. By the way, I walked by the table this morning, and there are still free copies left. Grab yours this Sunday!

In chapters three and four, Ortlund continues to invite us to draw nearer to the heart of Christ. In chapter three, he points us to what makes Jesus happy. Much like a doctor feels joy when patients receive her healing touch, Jesus is happy when we come to him for help. The author writes, “His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It’s the whole reason He came.” We tend to think that when we come to Jesus with our mess, He gets annoyed or angry. Ortlund says that it’s the exact opposite:

“He does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness, for renewed pardon, with distress and need and emptiness. That’s the whole point. It’s what He came to heal. He went down into the hour of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless supply of mercy and grace to his people."

In chapter four, Ortlund digs into Hebrews 4:15 that reads, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” We’re prone to think that the Jesus we read about in the gospels no longer welcomes us in the same way today. Now that He’s risen, has ascended into heaven, we can doubt his compassion toward us. But Christ still deeply cares. And He’s with us in our suffering. Ortlund writes,

“The burden of this anchor verse is Jesus Christ’s sheer solidarity with his people. All our natural intuitions tell us that Jesus is with us, on our side, present and helping, when life is going well. This text says the opposite. Ir is in “our weaknesses” that Jesus sympathizes with us.

The fact that He understands - as a man - yet remains sinless - gives us great hope. Writes Ortlund, “Not only can he alone pull us out of the hole of sin; he alone desires to climb in and bear our burdens.” This is who Jesus is - the gentle and lowly One - who saves.

Following are some questions for reflection from this week’s chapters:

"When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them." Consider what you miss out on when you hold back from Christ, fearful and failing. What does it mean for you as a believer to know that Christ cares for you as his own body?

Have you deeply considered Christ's "solidarity" with you in your Christian discipleship? What does this mean for your everyday life?