The Bruised Reed

A reed at the edge of the water, bent over a third of the way up where something stood on it. Still green. Still rooted. Useless now for what reeds were cut for, since a cracked one will not carry a note or measure a wall, and the ordinary thing is to snap it off and take another. Indoors, a lamp whose flax wick has gone out, putting up that thin line of smoke and the smell that tells the room the light has failed. Ordinary thing to do: pinch it.

The servant in Isaiah 42 does neither, and the reason given is not gentleness of temperament. Read the whole line: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. Judgment is the subject of the paragraph, three times in four verses, and the reed and the wick sit inside a description of how justice gets carried out. Then the next verse turns both words back on him. In Hebrew, verse four says he shall not burn dim and shall not be broken, the same pair used of the wick and the reed. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth. Whoever will not snap the reed is the one who does not snap.

Matthew saw the fit. He quotes these lines over a stretch where Jesus withdraws from a plot against his life, heals the whole crowd that follows him, and tells them all to keep quiet about it. So go back to the reed, and be exact about what is promised, because it is smaller and steadier than a rescue. The reed stays bent. The wick still smokes. Neither is finished off, and both are still there in the morning when the hand that would have thrown them out has other work to do.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 362 is Kings and Priests to God (Revelation 1:5-6).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two