I like to fish. Although I live in Florida right on the coast, surrounded by salt water, I’ve mostly done freshwater fishing. Most of my fishing has been in little streams and lakes, and mostly what I’ve fished for is bluegills. Bluegills like to hang out in quiet areas along the edges of the streams and lakes. They live in among the reeds. Since I have actually done quite a bit of bluegill fishing in my life, and since bluegills can usually be found among the reeds at the edge of the lake, I have spent a pretty good chunk of my life among the reeds. So when I was reading the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, a verse in chapter 42 jumped right off the page at me.
Isaiah 42:1-3 Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice.
The part about bruised reeds is, of course, the part that caught my attention, so I want to look at the verse and understand it. But first, in order to understand it, we need to look briefly at the other verses. These other verses are really representative of the rest of the chapter. They are talking about justice. They are talking about God’s law. God cares a lot about justice. God cares a lot about the law. We often hear people talk about the Old Testament law versus New Testament grace. But that concept of Old Testament opposing New Testament reflects a serious misunderstanding.
It’s not as if God changed His mind about what He likes and doesn’t like. It’s not as if God has decided that sin no longer matters. What has changed is the way in which we are reconciled to God. Because we are sinful people, we are unable to keep the law. The law, however, still reflects God’s desires; it’s just that we have always been unable to meet God’s desires. The law said that sin is treason against God and must be paid for by death. So, in the Old Testament, animals were sacrificed. People brought bulls and goats and sheep to the temple where they were slaughtered and burnt on altars as sacrifices for sin. This system of sacrifice was a gory, bloody, smelly, disgusting thing, but it provided temporary reprieve from the consequences of sin.
In the New Testament, Jesus, the Son of God, became the ultimate and final sacrifice as He gave His own life for our sins. As a result, justice has been fulfilled through Jesus. That’s what these verses in Isaiah are talking about. Jesus fulfilled eternal, true, godly justice in His death and resurrection. The demands of the law were met. Now, understanding that, I want to look a little more closely at this verse about bruised reeds and smoldering wicks.
In the middle of these verses about God’s law and God’s justice is the simple verse about the Grace of Jesus. “A bruised reed He will not break, a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.”
As I mentioned, I have spent quite a bit of time in and among the reeds while fishing. There are a couple of things I’ve observed about reeds. Healthy, unbroken reeds are strong and tough. If you snag a fishhook into one, you’re not going to yank it out, you have to go over and work it out by hand. Reeds are tough. And they are flexible. You can bend a reed a long way before it breaks. But something else I’ve noticed about reeds is that once they are damaged, they don’t heal. If you break a reed, it falls over in the water and within a couple of days it is mushy and rotten. It might be strong and flexible when undamaged, but when broken it is worthless. So, Isaiah gives us a little word picture here. He gives us an image of a broken damaged, worthless reed. Hold that image in your minds as we look at the other word picture here, the image of a smoldering wick.
You probably know that in Bible times people burned little oil lamps for light. These lamps looked a little bit like Aladdin’s lamp. They had a shallow bowl that would be filled with oil, and a spout. The spout was where a wick made from flax would be placed. As long the lamp had oil, the flaxen wick would siphon the oil and burn the oil. But if the oil ran dry, the wick itself would begin to burn. When the wick began burning, it smoked and smoldered. Now, flax was very cheap to begin with, and this was a fairly common occurrence, so people generally kept a good supply of flax on hand to use as wicks. The normal thing when a wick began smoldering would be simply to remove the damaged, smoldering wick and throw it away and replace it with a new wick.
So, the picture Isaiah paints for us here is of two damaged, useless items that would normally be cast aside, that would normally be thrown out. Because they are damaged, they have no particular value. This Scripture tells us that Jesus defies logic, Jesus defies common wisdom, Jesus refuses to cast aside damaged goods, and instead chooses to restore them. This is both important to us today and Good News for us today because, obviously, this Scripture is not actually talking about reeds and wicks, it’s talking about people. In fact, it’s talking about us. We are the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. We are the damaged goods that Jesus refuses to cast aside.
And I don’t mean that once upon time we were damaged, I mean that we are damaged. It’s not like once we were unworthy of grace, but now we have become worthy. Logically, we have nothing to offer God. Since our continuing addiction to sin is still a problem for us, logically, God has every right to cast us aside. I don’t know about you, but when I start thinking like that, it makes me very uncomfortable. I would like to think that God has shown me grace because He knew that I would turn out to be such a great guy. I like to think that if I’m not exactly deserving of grace, at least I’m more deserving than some people are. I like to think that the spiritual progress that I have made has somehow qualified me for grace. But the truth is that I’m not deserving, I never have been deserving, and I never will be deserving. And neither are you.
How many of us if we are totally honest, think that if other people knew everything there is to know about us -if they knew all of our secrets, all of our worries, all of our fears, all of our sins -if other people knew all of that about us, they might not like us as much as they do right now?
The truth is we hide so much and pretend to be better than we are, but we are all in the same boat. It’s really a blessing that we can’t read each other’s thoughts. I’m sure we couldn’t handle that. But there is Someone who knows us absolutely. There is Someone who knows every fear, every worry, every sin we have committed, and every secret we have tried to hide. There is Someone who knows our dilemma, that we need grace but are so undeserving. He has every right to cast us aside. But He has chosen not to. “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.”
Thank God that His grace, His forgiveness, His mercy is not reserved for those who deserve it. God’s love is given to bruised reeds. Forgiveness is given to smoldering wicks. Mercy is shown to those of no particular value. Grace is given to people like us.
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