A Bruised Reed....

“Hope and Rest in the Name of Jesus”

(Matthew 12:1-21, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, September 9, 2007)

Matthew 12:1-21 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. ² But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath." ³ He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: ⁴ how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? ⁵ Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? ⁶ I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. ⁷ And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. ⁸ For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath." ⁹ He went on from there and entered their synagogue. ¹⁰ And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"- so that they might accuse him. ¹¹ He said to them, "Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? ¹² Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." ¹³ Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. ¹⁴ But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. ¹⁵ Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all ¹⁶ and ordered them not to make him known. ¹⁷ This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ¹⁸ "Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. ¹⁹ He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; ²⁰ a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; ²¹ and in his name the Gentiles will hope."

Introduction

When was the last time that you saw a story of great mercy that really moved you? We ought to be impressed when we see anything close to mercy. Mercy should be more impressive to us then mere words, however correct the words appear to be. September 5^th was the tenth anniversary of the death of an Albanian nun who captured the interest of the world. Why were so many people attracted to this little woman who worked for over 40 years in the slums of Calcutta? It was not her theology. It was her mercy.

I recently watched a video of a striking episode of some wild animals that probably displays instinct rather than mercy. It was still very moving because it captured behavior that seems so much like compassion. The video began with a contest between a leopard and a baboon. The leopard won, but as she was carrying away her kill, something surprising climbed out of the fur of the baboon. It was a one-day old baby baboon. Instead of killing the baby as a predator might have, the leopard’s maternal instinct took over. She dropped her kill (the adult baboon), and spent the rest of the night focusing all of her attention upon the helpless baby, protecting it from other dangerous predators in the jungle, and cuddling it in a high safe branch of a tree. It was very moving to watch. It touches our hearts to see something that looks like sensitivity. In fact, if we have no heart for mercy, there is something wrong with us – something that needs correction. The cure for this ailment may be a fresh consideration of Christ.

The story of God’s plan as told in the Bible makes no sense to me without the mercy of God. Mercy is one of God’s essential character qualities together with His justice. His justice rightly demands that evil be punished. Nonetheless, if God had no desire to display the greatness of His mercy, there would have been no point to the birth of Jesus. In fact there would have been no point to creation, the fall, the Old Testament sacrificial system, and so many other things if God was not intent on displaying His tremendous love. Therefore it is not surprising that when the Son of God comes in person, one of the main things that we see in action through His ministry is divine mercy.

Plucking Grain to Eat on the Sabbath

The Pharisees seemed to have a problem with this. At least we can say that they were offended when Jesus chose mercy above blind obedience to the strange rules of their tradition. The battleground was often the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

The disciples were hungry. They were plucking the heads of grain in the fields and eating them. The traditions of the Pharisees, designed to make sure that you did not even come close to working on the Sabbath, prohibited this plucking of grain, because they feared that it was too close to harvesting, and thus might be thought of as working on the Sabbath. For us it would be like a hungry band of friends taking a Sunday afternoon walk through a generous man’s apple orchard, and picking a fresh apple from a low-lying branch with the owner’s permission. The Pharisee was quick to call that sin and to condemn it. Jesus said it was hunger, and eventually would point them to the higher demands of the law – that the follower of God must imitate God’s kind heart and Jesus’ ministry of restoration.

First Jesus points to two episodes from the Old Testament to challenge their wrong understanding of the Sabbath law. He says David and his followers were hungry when they were running away from Saul, and because they were hungry they did something that did not appear at first glance to be lawful. They ate food that only priests were supposed to eat. They, like Jesus’ disciples, were on a kingdom mission and there was a special need, and they were guiltless in what they did. A second example: The priests themselves do their work on the Sabbath day, and obviously God is fine with their seeming violation of the Sabbath law, since He is the author of their priestly duties. Jesus could have approached His critique of the Pharisaic position from many angles. He seems to first draw attention to the nature of His mission. This is something like a king’s mission – like David and his men. This is something like a priest’s holy work that is being done. Jesus is preaching the Kingdom of God and is preparing to do His great work as our High Priest. He will offer up the sacrifice for sin at just the right time. Let the men eat. There is something greater than the temple here. There is someone more wonderful than thousands of bulls and goats offered in sacrifices here. Jesus our King and Priest has come. He is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Why couldn’t the Pharisees see this? They did not have an eye for the mercy of God. We don’t want to miss this and end up on the side of the Pharisees in this debate. They did not see the good thing that God desired, and they condemned the guiltless. Understand something essential about the God that we worship. He desires mercy.

Healing a Broken Man on the Sabbath

Jesus then goes into a synagogue and heals a man who had a “withered hand.” Once again the Pharisees had interpreted healing as “work,” and therefore they taught that it was prohibited on the Sabbath. They felt strongly enough about this to try to set up this incident as a trap. But they are caught in their own trap. They are exposed as people who cannot be amazed at the power of Jesus. They are exposed as people who cannot love God’s kindness to this man because it comes on the wrong day. They are exposed as people who do not understand Sabbath at all.

God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and he rested on the seventh day. This is how the Sabbath came to be. The Sabbath is the day of perfection and of the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. When someone goes to heaven they enter the Sabbath rest of God in a new way. Especially when the resurrection comes, all that was wrong in us will be made right. All that was hurt will be healed. Yet the wounds of Christ that He suffered on the cross for us will still appear in heaven testifying to the sacrifice by which we have been made whole.

There is something not right about a hand that is twisted or lifeless. This is not a life-threatening problem. It’s just not right. We all have things like that. Don’t despair if something about you is not quite right. The great Sabbath day of resurrection is coming. But the man with the withered hand did not have to wait for the Lord to come again in order for his hand to be made right. The Lord of the Sabbath was there in the synagogue that day. He did a heavenly sign, a sign of something that needed the touch of mercy and restoration. It was a good thing, and it is lawful to do a good thing, even on the Sabbath. People are of more value than sheep, and you would help a sheep who feel in a pit on the Sabbath day. Surely it is right to restore a man.

Jesus can heal things about people that are not quite right. He can even heal an angry heart. That means that there is plenty of hope for Pharisees too. Remember that many of these same Pharisees plotting to kill Jesus end up in the church before long. Imagine the mercy of someone who would save people who were conspiring to kill him. Who would do that? This is what Jesus did.

My Servant Whom I Have Chosen

From this point we see the Lord of the Sabbath moving out and bringing healing to many people who were following him. The Bible says that he healed them all. How do we understand it? He is God. He is mercy. He is Sabbath restoration. The way that Matthew wants us to understand it is by seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah 42:3. Jesus quietly and boldly does what He does because He is the chosen servant of God. He does what He does because He is the long-expected Messiah. “A bruised reed, he will not break.” The word translated “bruised” means battered or broken in pieces. He will not break something even though it is already very broken. He will not remove the flame from something when it doesn’t even seem to have any flame left at all, just a little bit of smoke.

Jesus will restore. He will do Sabbath with people’s lives. He will take what is broken and make it strong. He will take what is clearly extinguished and give it the flame of life again. He will take someone who is without merit, and grant worth to him simply through his sovereign mercy. Even angry Pharisees elected by God will somehow be given hearts that are alive. They will be brought into the fold of the church and will be considered a part of the King’s team. In this Jesus, even the Gentiles will hope. What a merciful Savior! There is hope for the most broken reed because of Him. No matter how broken and lifeless you feel today, put your hope in Jesus name.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What are some of the reasons why the Pharisees may have spoken up against the disciples that day?

2. Why did Jesus use those two illustrations from Scripture to make His point before He spoke about mercy?

3. Why didn’t Jesus just avoid controversy in the synagogue, and heal the man on another day?

4. What are some of the ways that God “speaks” to us about mercy through natural revelation?