Jesus allowed Himself to become vulnerable: a babe in a manger, one tried like us, submitting to the cross.

Can we agree that His meekness is ultimate strength? That His ability to be tender and meek is the way we are softened and brought to humility? And, it is the way we are saved. Let us hold his tenderness and meekness in highest regard—that His vulnerability allowed for the ultimate victory and His tenderness enables us to be reached in our sins. He pulls us out with His strong, ever-able arm, as we love more and more the humility of the God-Man and long to be like Him in His beauty.

Strength can be misunderstood. Strength is not necessarily dominance, though Jesus is God and demands all worship and praise. Strength is not necessarily being commanding, though Jesus commands us to follow Him and will defeat His foe with a breath. Jesus demonstrated strength in being unafraid of what was ahead for Him—in enduring the cross with joy. He demonstrated strength in His submission to the cross. This is frankly a strength that I don’t fathom. I am stopped.

He did what was necessarily to complete a mission of truth and grace—of love. And in His moment of greatest human frailty, His death, and His moment of greatest sacrifice: He triumphs. His very submission is the victory.