Something For Sunday
By Robert Jones
C.S. Lewis once wrote that the idea of chivalry—that great medieval dream of manhood—was not simply about swords, battles, or rescuing maidens in distress. It was about the forging of two qualities that rarely coexist within the same soul: fierceness and gentleness, courage and compassion. He pointed to Sir Launcelot, the noblest of Arthur’s knights, as the embodiment of this paradox. When Launcelot died, Sir Ector mourned him saying, “Thou wert the meekest man that ever ate in hall among ladies; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever-put spear in the rest.”
Lewis reflected that the genius of chivalry was in this double demand. The knight was a man of blood and iron — accustomed to the clash of swords and the sight of wounds — yet he was also a humble and tender guest in the king’s hall. The same hand that could wield a blade with deadly strength could lift a child with the gentlest care. And Lewis observed that this balance was no mere accident of personality; it was deliberate — because humanity desperately needs both. He wrote, “It brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another… It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valor of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew he was as likely as not to be a milksop.”
That is the crisis of the human spirit, isn’t it? We tend to live on one side of the spectrum. Some are brave but brutal — full of conviction but void of compassion. Others are kind but cowardly — quick to empathize but slow to stand firm. Our world swings wildly between the two. We celebrate toughness without tenderness and empathy without endurance. Yet the wholeness of humanity — the beauty of moral perfection — requires both.
Courage without compassion becomes cruelty; compassion without courage becomes compromise. One wounds others; the other weakens oneself. One dominates; the other dissolves. But when the two unite — when strength learns to serve and tenderness learns to stand — then we glimpse something divine.
Lewis concluded that unless we can somehow form people who are both “fierce to the nth and meek to the nth,” society has no hope of lasting dignity. In other words, civilization itself depends upon the marriage of courage and compassion.
And if that is true of human society, how much more of divine redemption? Because the greatest demonstration of that union is not found in the legends of Camelot but in the life of Christ. He is the perfect Knight of Heaven — the Lion who is also the Lamb. In Him we see courage that does not cower before evil and compassion that does not withhold mercy from the undeserving.
