Daily Devotional

If the slap exposed our honor, the lawsuit and the forced mile expose our love of legal and political fairness. The tunic was the inner garment, and a creditor could legally claim it for debt. The cloak, however, was protected by Exodus 22:26-27 because it doubled as a poor man’s blanket at night. Keener observes that Jesus is telling his disciples: if a man takes the one thing the law lets him take, give him the one thing the law would never let him take. Stun him with generosity.

The second mile is even more pointed. Roman soldiers had the legal right to compel a Jewish citizen to carry their gear for one mile, the same word Mark uses when Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry the cross. Every patriotic fiber would resist. Jesus says, go a second mile. Keener writes that this is not mere submission; it is exceeding the demand in love. You are no longer a victim of the Roman; you are a witness to a different kingdom.

Underneath both pictures is what John Chrysostom called meekness: “the calmness of a mind which cannot be easily vexed by the evils it suffers, nor be provoked to inflict evils.” That is not weakness. It is strength under control. Grace Hammond writes that only the meek are not purely reactive in their context, and so only the meek are actually free. A reactive person, however justified their reaction, is still enslaved to the person who provoked them. The meek disciple is the only free person in the room.