Not A Pretty Picture

Not A Pretty Picture

A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.

Isaiah 42:3

The compassion of Christ shines brilliantly as one of the most outstanding features of His stellar character. Everywhere we look in the depictions of His Life and Ministry, we behold Him dealing compassionately with people who were, in their own right, quite unlovely in various ways. He was compassionate toward the ten lepers, the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, the man born blind, and the man with the withered hand. He was compassionate toward the morally unlovely. The maniac of Gadara, the woman at the well, Zaccheus, and the woman taken in adultery all come to mind. In the case of each of these we see the warm glow of Christ’s compassion spreading itself over their desperate conditions. Our text today comments upon this compassion in a graphic way. ‘A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.’ The bruised reed is that fragile slender shaft which, having been perhaps trodden upon by some careless passerby, hangs its head in a weak and helpless way, completely unable to right itself. The smoking flax is the wick of that lamp which is out of oil, and therefore unable to give light, but rather emits a noxious smell, with the unpleasant smoke. Our text declares ‘A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.’  Behold, the compassion of Christ. How often do we find that these are accurate depictions of us. How often are we like, ‘the bruised reed and the smoking flax.’ We must be truthful about ourselves, and in doing so we will magnify the Grace of God and the compassion of Christ. Here we see a graphic description of ourselves, and it is not a pretty picture. The better we understand who and what we are apart from the Grace of God, the more we magnify His mercy, and the more we appreciate the overwhelming compassion of Christ to us. As we begin our meditations upon this text, which will carry us for the next few days, let us begin by taking a realistic view of ourselves in order that we might see our great need of Christ.

Our Gracious Master and Our God,
we praise You, that You are the Great Lover of the Unlovely.
We have nothing to offer
and depend utterly upon the abundance of Your Free Grace.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning