A bruised reed shall He not break,
And the smoking flax shall He not quench,
He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.—(Ver. 3.)
THE reed is a fitting symbol of human frailty. At the best it has little strength. It is “shaken with the wind,” it is laid low with the rain, it is the plaything of the storm. But a bruised reed—what at all shall we make of it? You have seen it, perhaps, trodden under men’s feet, crushed and flattened and soiled, a poor, valueless thing that merely cumbered the ground, and you would not be easily persuaded that there was anything in the bruised reed to repay the smallest measure of care or consideration. And smoking flax—there is not much light, or promise of light, there. You have seen the wick of a candle smoking after you have extinguished the flame; that is the figure: it implies the nearest possible approach to complete extinction. Christ will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. Nay, He will lift up the one “from the dust,” and shield it from violence, and smooth out the bruises with a gentle hand, and nourish it unto fulness of growth; and He will shelter the other from the rough winds, and, softly breathing upon the sinking spark, will fan it into a flame. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
What is the characteristic which these words describe? It is Tenderness. We have, in the short compass of one or two sentences, a beautiful picture of the gentleness of Jesus.
And how amply were those words of ancient prophecy verified in the realities of His earthly life. Christ lived and moved among bruised reeds and smoking flax. He came into a world that was groaning and travailing in pain. On every hand He was confronted with suffering. On every hand He saw men “bruised” with sore distress, their life crushed unto the dust with grievous burdens. How did He regard this sad scene? What kind of eye did He turn upon the spectacle of human misery? We know that from the very commencement of His public work, His life was one continuous ministry of healing. He set Himself to stanch the flowing wound of the world’s sorrow. He had many sorrows that were peculiar to Himself—in that dark realm, as elsewhere, the “Man of Sorrows” claims the pre-eminence—but He was also “acquainted with grief”—the grief of others. He went about continually doing good. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And who ever ministered with such grace of tenderness? He was “moved with compassion” when he looked on the leper’s misery, and He shrank not from touching the loathsome mass of disease. His tears fell fast when from the slopes of Olivet “He beheld the city”—the city with so wonderful a past, but so tragic a future, and so stubbornly regardless of its impending doom. He wept again with Mary at the grave of Lazarus, and yet again His pity flowed when He met the mourners of Nain, and heard the simple story of the widow’s grief. Alike the pangs of physical pain, and the yet more bitter pangs of mental distress, the misery of men as well as their sin, stirred the depths of His tenderness. His eye affected His heart, and His heart as surely moved His hand. So closely was Christ identified with the relief of human suffering that, when one day He had been engaged from morning until even in healing divers forms of disease, Matthew tells us that these words found their fulfilment, “Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.”
His heart went out to the downtrodden and the oppressed; He took the side of the outcast; He refused to recognise, or recognised only to set aside, the restrictions of social caste. His mission was to the lost—lost in the eyes of man as well as in the sight of Heaven. “The friend of publicans and sinners” was a term of reproach hurled at Him by His enemies, but it enshrines a glorious truth. There were many such bruised reeds at that time in Judea. It was a land where national pride and social exclusiveness, and relentless prejudices of various kinds flourished in rank profusion. Those who were outside the radius were kept out with a strong hand; those who were down had little chance of ever being able to rise. The “sinners” were relegated to their own place of social isolation by sinners greater than themselves; the “publicans” inherited a rich legacy of national hate. Christ did not break these bruised reeds. He received the lonely outcasts unto Him. He ate with them, and made them in many cases heirs of the grace of life. He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. He went down to the very depths of human degradation for the trophies of His saving grace. His eye went past the thronging crowds of Jericho, and rested on the sycamore tree, where Zaccheus the Publican, one of the lost, was eagerly looking out for His coming. He must needs go through Samaria, and endure on His journey the burden and heat of the day, because in Samaria was a sinner, fallen even in the eyes of the world, whom He designed to save. And with what heavenly wisdom does the Great Physician deal with that bruised reed. Again, when “one more unfortunate” is brought before Him in the shame of detected guilt, that He may pronounce judgment upon her, with what skill does He turn the weapons of her accusers against themselves, how plainly does He reserve the greater weight of condemnation for organised hypocrisy than for erring frailty, and with what tenderness, yet all the more penetrating keenness of reproof, does He send her away to “sin no more.” Yet again, how beautiful an illustration of this characteristic is furnished by his treatment of the Syrophoenician woman. He did not quench the smoking flax. Even while seeming to blow on her petition with the cold breath of refusal, He is really strengthening her desire till it mounts up to a very triumph of living faith.
He was full of forbearance toward the weak. Though high, He had respect unto the lowly. We are often disposed to be impatient of weakness. We are ready to worship strength. We admire the active and the vigorous, and when the weak and the frail go down in the struggle of life, and are bruised beneath the feet of the strong and the unheeding, we are inclined to say, “There let them lie; we are better without them; there is no place on the battlefield of life for weaklings.” But that is not the spirit of Christ. His ear was ever open to the cry of those who were “without strength.” When the woman with the issue of blood, enfeebled through long years of disease, and heart-sick through hope deferred, tried to make her way through the pressing multitude, when He was on the way to the house of Jairus, and at last succeeded in touching from behind the hem of His garment, He did not say, “I have more pressing work on hand just now. There is no time for delay.” No. He turned round and said, “Who touched me?” That feeble touch had laid hold of the resources of His might. When Bartimeus cried to Him from the roadside, when His face was steadfastly set for the last time to go to Jerusalem, He did not avert His head, and say, “This is no time for thinking of such trifles as a beggar’s cry.” No. He stood still, and commanded him to be brought. And “When mothers of Salem their children brought to Jesus,” He did not frown upon the forwardness of their love, and say, “What have I to do with the prattling of children when there are foes to conquer and a kingdom to win.” No. He took them up in His arms and laid His hands on them, and blessed them. These were instances of bruised reeds that He did not break.
He was full of compassion for the ignorant, and for those that were out of the way. Take for illustration of this his dealings with His own disciples. They were often like the smoking flax. The light of Divine grace was in them, but sometimes it smouldered low. They were often not very apt scholars, dull of understanding, and slow of heart to believe. Yet how wonderfully did He bear with them, how patient He was, and gentle, and forbearing. When they strove which of them should be the greatest, He took a little child and put him in the midst, and proceeded to give them a touching lesson in humility. When the sons of Zebedee requested that the chief seats in glory should be reserved for themselves, He had no severer reprimand for their presumption than, “Ye know not what ye ask;” and He again begins to instruct them with matchless long-suffering. When Peter fell from his height of self-confidence to deny his Lord, and the reed became bruised with shame and bitter contrition, Christ’s thoughts go out to His fallen disciple in the darkness of his after sorrow. He sends him a special message after He rises from the dead, and, first among the disciples, seeks him out for a personal interview. And when Thomas refused to believe without the testimony of his own senses Christ appeared in the midst of the disciples when Thomas was with them, and furnished him with the very evidence which he desired.
Very specially did He manifest His tenderness in His dealings with anxious, sin-stricken souls. It is in His treatment of the diseased soul, the groping understanding, the awakened conscience, the anxious heart, that the skill and gentle care of the Great Physician are supremely displayed. What more complete description of infinite tenderness could be given than that of this same prophet Isaiah concerning Him in another place, “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” Connect these words with those that follow, and they appear more beautiful still: the tenderness belongs to One who is full of glorious majesty and power—”Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance.”
His tenderness was not indeed an indiscriminating emotion. He knew what was in man. The Spirit that was upon Him made Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and He did not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears. He could see behind the fairest pretensions of hypocrisy and deceit. He read the heart. And no more awful words of sternness, no more scathing denunciations of sin, no more withering exposures of guile and dissimulation, were ever heard in this world than those which were uttered by the servant of the Lord. Sometimes there flashed forth from the placid depths of His meekness the white flame of His indignation against wrong, and we gather some conception even here of how terrible in its fulness must be “the wrath of the Lamb.” But wherever He saw sincerity and truth, that He ever regarded with tenderness and care. The feeblest gropings of the understanding after light, the lowliest movings of true soul concern, the faintest rustlings of the wings of desire, these He was of quick understanding to discern, and He did not despise them for their weakness. When the conscience was troubled with a sense of guilt, He well knew what kind of treatment to prescribe; when the pressure might well be heightened, and when it was time to administer relief; He could measure with unfailing precision the distance between bruising and breaking. And when the heart was crushed with contrition and godly sorrow, who could bind up its wounds with such gentleness of touch as He? “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” He said to the bruised ones, “and I will give you rest.” His heart went out to them with infinite pity when He saw them drawing water from the broken cisterns of earth, and He stood and cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever. He is still full of forbearance and compassion and gentleness. There are many bruised reeds among His people, many borne down with grievous sorrows, many oppressed with heavy burdens, many tried with strong temptations, many harassed with disabling fears. But He knows where the strong consolations lie, and He administers them with the hand of unerring wisdom and unfailing love. He will not suffer His own to be tempted above what they are able to bear, He will not cast them off because of their weakness. As a mother comforteth her children, so will He comfort them. He will perfect that which concerneth them. He will bring forth judgment unto truth.