Isaiah declares that Christ will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. And there is more meant in those words than we can truly fathom.
The last seven or eight years I made it my goal to be a student of the mercy of God. I live everyday drawing on His mercies. He says there are new every day and every new day I long to discover another new facet of His mercy. Spurgeon once said that mercy is God’s darling trait. It is the one virtue the Lord loves to manifest in our lives.
We humans know how to exercise some mercy. A doctor will give attention to a stubborn patient who continually abuses his body. It is mercy. A dad will continue to provide for his wayward son. That is mercy. If we are mere streams through which mercies flow, how much more with God, the very spring of mercy? We cannot think that there is more mercy in us than in God, who plants the affection of mercy in us in the first place.
Let’s behold and consider the Christ who shows mercy to all bruised reeds, for a moment. Consider the names he has borrowed from the mildest of creatures, such as lamb and hen, to show us His tender mercies. He came so that he should `bind up the broken hearted' (Isa. 61:1). At his baptism the Holy Spirit rested on him in the shape of a dove, to show that he should be a dove-like, gentle Mediator.
When he walked this earth, his heart yearned when he saw the people `as sheep having no shepherd' (Matt. 9:36)! He never turned anyone away from him who came to him. He shed tears for those that shed his blood, and now he makes intercession in heaven for those who are weak, standing between them and God's anger. That’s mercy.
He is a meek king; he will admit mourners into his presence, a king of poor and afflicted persons. He is the prince of peace (Isa. 9:6). He is God and as God He cannot be tempted and yet as man he was tempted that he might `help them that are tempted' (Heb. 2:18)?
What mercy may we not expect from so gracious a Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5)? He is a physician who is the healer of all diseases, especially at the binding up of a broken heart. He died that he might heal our souls with a plaster of his own blood, and by that death save us from our own destruction. Oh, what mercy!
You wake up in the morning with accusive thoughts swimming through your mind. Thoughts like, I am not worthy of God. I am not good enough. I don’t deserve any good thing.A bruised reed he will not break. Pause for a moment. Behold the Christ: in Him you have mercy and that mercy is fresh and new, every day.
