Lonely Exile: A Daily Advent Devotional

Part Twelve: A Bruised Reed

“…a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench…” Isaiah 42:3, NRSVue

Read: Isaiah 42:1-4

When the earliest Jesus followers needed to make sense of their experience of him they turned to the only place they could imagine that would help them understand what had happened: Their Bible. When they came back to their Scripture on the other side of the Jesus experience, they began to see passages like Isaiah 42 differently. A text like this, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench,” resonated deeply with them. They saw echos of their experience of Jesus in those words.

I can see why texts like this connected with them. When we read the stories in the Gospels we find a Jesus who embodies the care and compassion of Isaiah 42. We meet a Jesus who expresses a deep compassion for the bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks, the people who were excluded and forgotten. The Jesus we meet in the pages of the New Testament is tender, empathetic, and moves toward those on the margins.

This understanding of Jesus seems to be lost in some forms of Christianity in our time. There is a resistance to a Jesus who feels, who cares, and who aligns himself with those without power. In the face of movements like Christian Nationalism, there is all the more reason—and urgency—for us to reclaim the vision of Jesus we find in the Gospels. More than that, there is a necessity for us to continue his work in our own world. That is ultimately how we can best love Jesus today, by continuing his movement of including and caring for those among us who are marginalized, forgotten, and excluded.

Question for Reflection:
What does it mean, as Isaiah 42 says, to not break a bruised reed?
How does this image impact the work we are called to do today?