A Bruised Reed

A Bruised Reed

Isaiah 42:3 describes the actions of the Messiah. It says : “A bruised reed, he will not break and a smoldering wick, he will not snuff out.”

The Messiah, Jesus Christ, is gentle and kind.

Most of us have been bruised in our lives. We have been hurt and inured by people or events that were out of our control. Sometimes these hurts occur in childhood. We all have these events in our lives. We have been disappointed by people around us, by ourselves or we have been hurt for no apparent reason of our own making.

We respond to these hurts by attempting to control people or controlling our environment. We place ourselves in positions where we hopefully are not hurt again.

Sometimes, we develop personality characteristics that try to protect us. We become outwardly tough or we become secretive and try to blend in with our environment. Other times we are manipulative and try to manipulate other people to protect us. We become risk adverse.

We use physical beauty or physical strength or mental cunning to protect ourselves. And when these characteristics are diminished by life, we become miserable and desperate.

However, if the truth be known, inside most of us is a person who has been wounded, hurt or bruised. But we hide this to those around us because to be hurt appears to be a sign of weakness. Vulnerability is not considered to be a strong suit and often no mercy is given to the wounded.

However, Jesus Christ knows our heart. He knows our weaknesses because He became like us. He has tasted of our griefs and sorrows and was bruised himself for our iniquities.

Isaiah 53:3 describes the Messiah in the following manner: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.”

Isaiah 42:3 was quoted by Matthew in Matthew 12:20 when Matthew described how Jesus healed the sick. Sickness wears us down and causes us to be weak. We feel that we are broken and can not stand up to illness. Our wick is smoldering and the flame has almost gone out.

Jesus knows our weaknesses and he does come to us in our hour of need. It is only when our strong personalities have been knocked to the ground do we realize that we can not handle life on our own but that we need assistance from someone that has been there and understands us, someone who will not break us entirely but will deal with us tenderly and kindly.

That person is Jesus Christ.