Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 362 · December 28
The Bruised Reed
“A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.”
Picture a reed at the edge of the water, bent over a third of the way up where something stepped on it. It is still green and still rooted, but it is no use now for what reeds were cut for, because a cracked reed will not play a note or measure a wall. The ordinary thing is to snap it off and cut another. Indoors there is a lamp whose wick of flax is burning so low it barely gives light. It sends up a thin line of smoke, and the smell tells everyone in the room that the light is failing. The ordinary thing is to pinch it out.
The Servant in Isaiah 42 does neither, and the reason is bigger than a gentle nature. Read the whole line: "he shall bring forth judgment unto truth." Judgment, which here means justice, is the subject of the whole paragraph. In Hebrew the word comes three times in four verses, and the reed and the wick sit inside a description of how God's justice will be done. Then the next verse turns both pictures back on the Servant Himself. In Hebrew, verse four says He will not burn dim and will not be crushed, using the same pair of words as the wick and the reed: "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth." So the One who is gentle with the bruised reed is Himself the One who will not be broken.
Matthew saw how well this fits Jesus. He quotes these lines just after the Pharisees "held a council against him, how they might destroy him." Jesus withdrew, great crowds followed Him, "and he healed them all," and He told them not to make Him known.
So go back to the reed, and be exact about what is promised. It is smaller and steadier than a rescue. The reed is still bent, and the wick still smokes, yet neither one is thrown away. Both are still there in the morning, in the care of the One who will not fail. If you feel bent or burnt low, that is where you are too: held by Someone who keeps what others would throw out.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 362 is Made Priests to God (Revelation 1:5-6).