"For you have been called for this purpose,

since Christ also suffered for you,

leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps,

who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth;

and while being reviled, He did not revile in return;

while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept

entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously..."

I Peter 2:21-23

Much of this is quoted from Isaiah 53

"He was oppressed and He was afflicted,

Yet He did not open His mouth;

Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,

And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,

So He did not open His mouth."

"Meekness and Gentleness"

It's not as if Jesus never opened His mouth.  In fact, He Himself is called, "The Word."  But at this point in His life, He'd said all He needed to say.  He, though being willingly led to slaughter, was entrusting Himself to God.  He was fulfilling His purpose in spite of unjust suffering, of being oppressed and afflicted.
  

We are to follow His example.  We will be afflicted and oppressed.  We won't get out of this world without suffering.  But because of His sacrifice, not many of us will experience the kind of slaughter that this describes.  But Peter, who wrote this, did in fact suffer crucifixion upside down.

In the last two months, I've read that 300 Christians have been persecuted and killed in Nigeria.  (The last time I mentioned Christian persecution in my blog, Facebook shut it down.  So I won't mention the "M" word.)  But today I read how one group of over fifty were kidnapped: four of the men were shot and killed who would not recant their faith; the mothers were warned that the next day if they did not recant their faith, their children would be killed in front of them.  But the next morning, the children told their mothers to not recant, that it was going to be okay.  Sure enough when at gunpoint, there was screaming.  However, their persecutors ran away, and they were saved.  They weren't exactly silent, but they stood firm in their faith.

We have the last baby bird in the nest, a young man with some extra needs.  It was ironic that as I was writing the verse, "while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered not threats."  In a minuscule way, these words were mirrored in my Saturday morning routine while enforcing that the almost 18 year old begin His laundry before watching T.V.  He protested loudly--reviling me, you might even say--while I quietly reminded him of the consequences of his choices, not threats really, just reality.  

We are to have the meekness and gentleness of the Lamb of God.  It is like our friend used to preach, "Meekness is not weakness, but the calm and confident reliance on the adequate resources of God."