Strength in Meekness

Elder Bednar made this statement about meekness: “Meekness is strong, not weak; active, not passive; courageous, not timid; restrained, not excessive; modest, not self-aggrandizing; and gracious, not brash.”  The claim that meekness is strong, active, and courageous instead of weak and passive certainly goes against how the world would think of those who are meek and humble.  The end of the Savior’s life perhaps best emphasizes how meekness is indeed strong and ultimately powerful.  He described himself as “meek and lowly of heart,” He showed that He was indeed as He allowed Himself to be taken into custody illegally, beaten, mocked, and ultimately hung on the cross (Matt. 11:29).  The world saw His final hours as a sign of His weakness—saying “He saved others; himself he cannot save”—and yet He showed His incredible power of restraint as He resisted any temptation to do just that, commenting in the midst of His arrest, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels” (Matt. 27:42).  What incredible power of self-control He had to be able to not save Himself—to not put a stop to the cruel whip and the terrible nails and the bleeding from every pore—when He could have.  His meekness in being willing to suffer was indeed courageous and strong.

               We also see how meekness ultimately triumphed in the Savior’s glorious resurrection.  Though He suffered infinitely, and it seemed to men that the world triumphed over Him, that meek submission to the Father’s will allowed Him to have “broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory” (Mosiah 16:7).  His humility ultimately brought to Him great strength and power to “redeem all mankind who believe on His name” (Alma 19:13).  This power, though, was largely invisible to the world around Him—they saw only weakness in His meekness.  This reminds me of a scene from the memoir Le Chateau de ma Mère by Marcel Pagnol.  Near the end of the book, after Marcel’s family had been caught trespassing and were in an awkward situation, the father of Marcel, one not often in trouble for breaking rules, exclaimed, “Comme on est faible, quand on est dans son tort!” (“How we are weak when we are in the wrong!”)  Marcel commented, though, “La vie m'a appris qu'il se trompait, et qu'on est faible quand on est pur.” (“Life has taught me he was wrong, and that we are weak when we are pure.”)  The latter statement came at least in part because Marcel watched his mother, who was indeed pure, succumb to illness and die.  Though pure, she was indeed physically weak in the face of the grave difficulties of life.  But like the Savior, the power of her purity wasn’t that it stopped her suffering.  The Savior’s power at least in part came because of His purity and perfect obedience that allowed Him to triumph over sin and death.  Indeed we are weak when we are in the wrong—in sin—and righteousness and meekness and purity and humble submission to the Father brings the lasting power that we should all seek.