Breath · Week 5 of 7

A series on the Spirit of God

A Faint Wick

A cracked reed and a wick out of oil were things you threw away. God's Servant won't. At the Jordan, Jesus stepped into the water with everyone, and the Spirit came down on him. Then, in his hometown synagogue, he reached for the bruised. Usefulness was never the measure of your worth.

Isaiah 42:1–4 · with Luke 3:21–22 and 4:14–21 · CEB

Pastor Andrew StrombeckPreached Sunday, November 1, 202613-minute read

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In Isaiah's world, a cracked reed and a lamp wick out of oil were useless, and you threw them away. God's Servant does the opposite: "He won't break a bruised reed; he won't extinguish a faint wick."
At the Jordan, Jesus stepped into the water with everyone else, and the Father's words echoed Isaiah 42 over him. Then, in his hometown synagogue, he reached for the bruised. Not someday. "Today."
This week, write down the thing that feels broken, and give it to someone you trust who will pray for you and step into the water with you.

Read it slowly

Isaiah 42:1–4

1 But here is my servant, the one I uphold; my chosen, who brings me delight. I've put my spirit upon him; he will bring justice to the nations. 2 He won't cry out or shout aloud or make his voice heard in public. 3 He won't break a bruised reed; he won't extinguish a faint wick, but he will surely bring justice. 4 He won't be extinguished or broken until he has established justice in the land. The coastlands await his teaching.

Common English Bible. Read all of Isaiah 42

The sermon

He won't throw it away

01 · A reed you can't lean on

We're a long way from oil lamps. Most of us flip a switch. When I start a bonfire at home, I don't rub sticks together; I get out my propane torch. And daylight saving time ended on Sunday morning, so now the sun is down by about 5:30 PM, and we barely notice, because the lights come on.

Back then, when the sun went down, you needed a lamp. You had to make sure there was olive oil in it. And you noticed when the wick was going faint, because without it you couldn't see.

The other thing in Isaiah's picture is a reed: a tall, hard cane, the kind people used for walking sticks and measuring rods.¹ Both were everyday things people relied on. And if the reed cracked, you got rid of it and got a new one. And when a wick burned down to almost nothing, you snuffed it out.

Then Isaiah says this about God's Servant:

He won't break a bruised reed; he won't extinguish a faint wick, but he will surely bring justice.
(Isaiah 42:3)

So who are the reed and the wick? Isaiah 42 speaks to a people in exile. They've been stripped from their land. They're far from home, worn out, and a lot of them are convinced God has stopped paying attention. Two chapters earlier, Isaiah quotes their complaint back to them:

Why do you say, Jacob, and declare, Israel, "My way is hidden from the Lord / my God ignores my predicament"?
(Isaiah 40:27)

If Israel is anywhere in this picture, it's in the cracked cane and the lamp burning low. An ancient Aramaic paraphrase of Isaiah, the Targum, spells it out: the bruised reed is the poor, and the faint wick is the needy.²

Think about it today. If your cane had a crack and could snap at any moment, would you keep leaning on it? You'd throw it away. If your tape measure had half of it missing, what good would it be? If a candle burned down to the smallest little wick, most of us would toss it. (Some of you penny pinchers might carve out the wax to save it.) Once something seems useless, we let it go.

That's the picture Isaiah gives us. Where everybody else would snap the reed, the Servant supports it and straightens it. Where they'd pinch out the wick, he trims it and sets it deeper in the oil.³

And then verse 4 does something easy to miss: "He won't be extinguished or broken." The same two pictures, turned around and pointed at the Servant himself. He will go through the things that crush and put out, and he will come through them.⁴ He'll know from the inside what crushes and what quenches, and that's how he can bring new life.

02 · The measuring rod is broken

I love that picture, because there have been many times in my own life when I've felt kind of useless. I'd guess you've had those moments too. You pour time and effort into a project at work, and your boss says they're going in a different direction, and they can the project. Or the job itself goes. Or your body can't do what it used to, and in this stage of life you feel like you don't have much left to offer.

For me, the pressure shows up in how you measure ministry. Working with people is complex, and it's hard to gauge how you're doing, so pastors reach for the easiest things to count: how many people are in the seats, and how much money comes in.

I came to this church in 2019. Ten months later, COVID hit. People were still deciding whether they wanted to stay with the new guy, and then COVID threw a wrench in everything. There were Sundays when it was me and four other people. When you're in charge of something like that, it's heavy. I'd look around and ask what I was even supposed to do, and whether I had any answer to get us out of it.

I talked to my pastor friends and my mentors. One of them had been in ministry for about 35 years, and he told me this was the hardest ministry he'd been through in all that time. I said, "Oh, thanks. That's real encouraging."

That's the weight. How do I produce more? How do I do more to feel useful again? If this whole thing fails, what good am I?

I think we can all find moments when our worth went up and down with a number. Psychologists have a name for it: contingent self-worth. Our sense of worth rises and falls with how we do in whatever we've staked it on.⁶ And we are always measuring. At work. As parents: how good a parent am I, when the kids over there are so well behaved, and look at mine? In status, in money.

But the measure itself is broken, like a measuring rod with a crack in it. And when all of who we are gets wrapped up in it, it leaves us broken too.

Isaiah was speaking to people who felt exactly that way. They looked around and saw no way forward. And God spoke over them anyway.

03 · Down in the water with everyone

Now jump forward a few centuries, to the Jordan River. Crowds are coming down to John to be baptized.

When everyone was being baptized, Jesus also was baptized. While he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit came down on him in bodily form like a dove. And there was a voice from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness."
(Luke 3:21–22)

Notice where Luke puts Jesus. He doesn't set Jesus apart or out in front. Everybody is down there getting baptized, and Jesus steps into that water too, with them. These were people who knew they needed to start over, and Jesus chose to take his place with them.⁷

Before Jesus heals anyone, before he preaches a single sermon, he steps down into the river with the bruised reeds.

Then listen to what the Father says: "in you I find happiness." Most commentators hear Isaiah 42:1 in that line: "my chosen, who brings me delight. I've put my spirit upon him."⁸ Jesus is praying, the Spirit comes down, the Father speaks, and the Father echoes Isaiah over his Son. This is the Servant. The one with the Spirit on him. The one who won't break a bruised reed. And he has just been baptized alongside everyone else.

That strikes something in me. When we're in a broken, useless-feeling place, and somebody comes and steps into it with us, it changes everything. There's so much I've been through that I don't know I'd have made it through without my wife, my mentors, and my friends and colleagues walking with me. Many of you said encouraging words to me through those hard years. Many of you stuck it out with me and said we should just keep on loving God and pouring into whatever he has for us.

That's what Jesus does here. Before he fixes anything, he steps right into it with us.

04 · The address was the bruised

From the river, Luke keeps his eye on the Spirit. Jesus comes up from the Jordan "full of the Holy Spirit" (4:1). After the wilderness and a time teaching in synagogues around Galilee, he goes to Nazareth, where he had been raised. They hand him the scroll of Isaiah, and he reads:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
(Luke 4:18–19)

What Jesus reads is Isaiah 61, but he doesn't read it straight through. Near the end, he slips in a line from a different chapter, Isaiah 58: "to liberate the oppressed."¹⁰

The Hebrew word in Isaiah 58:6 behind "the oppressed" (the CEB there says "the mistreated") comes from the same root as the "bruised" reed in Isaiah 42:3. Crushed. The crushed ones. The CEB uses three different English words, so you can't see the link in it. The old King James keeps the word in Luke: "to set at liberty them that are bruised."¹¹

So the first time Jesus opens his mouth in his hometown, he reaches for the bruised. The Spirit that came down on Jesus at the Jordan had an address. And the address was the bruised.

Then he rolls up the scroll, sits down, and says:

"Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it."
(Luke 4:21)

Not someday. Not once you get yourself together. Not once you figure some things out and get on the right path. Today. Right here.

God doesn't look at broken things the way we do. Most of us, when something breaks, throw it away. Some things we keep. My great-grandfather bought a Honda Trail 90 brand new, way back in the '70s. It hasn't run since I was probably a teenager, and it has sat in my garage for years. I keep telling myself I've got to fix that thing up, and I never do. I don't throw it away, because it's been in my family so long that it holds value for me.

But keeping something isn't the same as fixing it. The Servant doesn't just keep the reed. He mends it. He doesn't take a broken staff and tape it up. He makes it new. Where a flame has trickled down to smoldering smoke, he fans it back into flame.

Last week we read that God doesn't look at the outside: "the Lord sees into the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). He sees things for what they truly are, and what they're truly worth. But our worth gets attached to things that rise and fall: what we can produce, what we can do. Then an injury happens, or a diagnosis, or a loss, or an empty Sunday, and it feels like our oil has been sucked dry. The day we start looking at ourselves the way we look at a cracked cane is the day we start to lose hope.

If the voice in your head has been saying everyone would be better off without you, hear this: that voice is lying. He does not break bruised reeds. Talk to someone you trust today: a pastor, a counselor, a friend.

So listen. When you feel useless, God doesn't see you the way you do. The Servant won't break you further. He won't snuff you out. God put his Spirit on his Servant, and wherever God's Spirit is, there is freedom, there is mending, there is life.

As I said at the end on Sunday, "He's not going to break that bruised reed. He's not going to snuff out that faint wick. He's not about to start doing that with you either."

One more breath

He mends, and he supplies

Somebody's thinking: doesn't that let people off the hook? Shouldn't we be pulling our weight?

Look at the text again. When Isaiah says he won't break the reed or put out the wick, the opposite is implied too. He can mend the broken reed and fan the smoldering wick back into flame.¹³

And notice that the two aren't the same problem. A bruised reed is damaged on the inside. A faint wick isn't broken at all; it has run out of oil. One needs curing. The other needs supply. The Servant can do both.

Some of us are the reed. Something broke on the inside. Some of us are the wick. Nothing in us snapped; we just ran out of oil. He knows the difference. He mends, and he supplies. Gentleness isn't a lower standard. It's how he mends broken things.

And it changes how we treat each other. If we measure ourselves by how useful we are, we measure everybody else that way too. When someone near you is bruised (a friend, a coworker, your kids, your spouse), sit with them before you try to fix them. Ask, "What would help?" And then mostly listen.

It's so easy for me to sometimes try to fix my kids' problems for them, when what they really need is for me to sit with them and let them know they're not alone, especially with all their emotions. We're no different.

Try this week

Write down the thing that feels broken or heavy right now. Then find someone you trust, someone who won't just pray for you but will step into the water with you, and give it to them. If you don't have someone like that, bring it to church and hand it to me. No one else will see it.

When the "I'm useless" thought comes this week, say this back to it: "He won't break a bruised reed." That's Isaiah 42:3, and it's still true on a Tuesday. Keep praying the lines from the earlier weeks too: "Your breath, not mine," "Spirit of God, fill this work," "we were never meant to carry all this alone," and "Create a clean heart for me, God."

For your table

Talk it over

For a small group, a family dinner, or a walk with a friend.

Read Isaiah 42:1–4 and list everything the Servant won't do. What does each "won't" tell you about who he is?
Luke says Jesus was baptized "When everyone was being baptized." Who has stepped into the water with you in a hard season, and what did they do that helped?
Who is one bruised person you could sit with this week, and what will you ask them before you try to fix anything?

Notes

Irene Jacob and Walter Jacob, "Flora," in David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (Doubleday, 1992). The giant grass, which "may be" the Hebrew word for reed, was used for "walking sticks," and the common reed for "measuring rods… walking canes."↩
The Targum of Isaiah 42:3, in Bruce Chilton's translation, as quoted by Craig L. Blomberg, "Matthew," in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker Academic; Apollos, 2007), on Matthew 12:18–21: "The poor who are like a bruised reed he will not break, and the needy who are like a dimly burning wick he will not quench." See also Barry Webb, The Message of Isaiah: On Eagles' Wings, The Bible Speaks Today (InterVarsity Press, 1996), on 42:1–9: "If Israel is to be found at all in the announcement of 42:1–9 it is in the bruised reed and the smouldering wick of verse 3."↩
John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1998), on 42:3: "he will support it and straighten it… he will trim it and rest it more deeply in the oil."↩
Alec Motyer, Isaiah, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 20 (InterVarsity Press, 1999), on 42:4: "The Servant comes right into the human situation. The things that crush and quench he will experience, but he will triumph…"↩
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. M. E. J. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 1994–2000), s.v. "כֵּהֶה" ("disheartened (spirit) Is 61:3… dim, faint, glowing (wick) Is 42:3") and the verb "כהה" (Isaiah 42:4).↩
Jennifer Crocker and Connie T. Wolfe, "Contingencies of Self-Worth," Psychological Review 108, no. 3 (2001): 593–623.↩
Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary, 2nd ed., Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 3 (InterVarsity Press, 1988), on 3:21: "Clearly he decided to take his place with them."↩
Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1–9:50, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Academic, 1994), on 3:22, who hears Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1 together in the voice; Morris, Luke, on 3:22 ("an echo of Isaiah 42:1"); David A. Neale, Luke 1–9: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2011), on 3:22; Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (1990), on 3:21–22, who cautions against "pouring into this moment all the implications of Isa. 42:1." Some commentators hear other texts: J. R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Luke, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans; Apollos, 2015), on 3:22, names Isaiah 49:3 (and Genesis 22) as the clear antecedents.↩
Morris, Luke, on 3:21: "Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who tells us that the descent of the Spirit occurred as Jesus was praying."↩
Bock, Luke 1:1–9:50, on 4:18: the line "is probably from Isa. 58:6." The CEB's own footnote to Luke 4:19 gives "Isa 61:1-2; 58:6."↩
The Hebrew root is rṣṣ: qāneh rāṣûṣ, "a bruised reed," in Isaiah 42:3, and rĕṣûṣîm, "the crushed," in Isaiah 58:6. The Greek Old Testament makes the same link another way: it says the Servant "will not be crushed" (Isaiah 42:4) with the verb Luke 4:18 uses for "the oppressed," taken from the Greek of Isaiah 58:6. Checked in the Hebrew Bible (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), the Septuagint (Rahlfs–Hanhart) and the SBL Greek New Testament. None of the commentaries behind this sermon draws this link; it's an observation from my notes on the Hebrew and Greek text, not a scholar's claim. The King James wording is Luke 4:18, King James Version.↩
Craddock, Luke, on 4:16–30: "the first public word of Jesus as an adult, apart from reading Scripture, is 'today.'"↩
Motyer, Isaiah, on 42:3: "The negative statements imply their positive equivalents: he can mend the broken reed, fan into flame the smouldering wick. The former has been internally damaged, the latter lacks the external nourishment of oil. The Servant is competent both to cure and to supply."↩

Go deeper

Where this came from

Sources behind this sermon

G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Baker Academic; Apollos, 2007), Craig L. Blomberg on Matthew
Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1–9:50, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Academic, 1994)
Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (1990)
Jennifer Crocker and Connie T. Wolfe, "Contingencies of Self-Worth," Psychological Review 108, no. 3 (2001): 593–623
J. R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Luke, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Eerdmans; Apollos, 2015)
David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (Doubleday, 1992)
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994–2000)
Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary, 2nd ed., Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 3 (InterVarsity Press, 1988)
Alec Motyer, Isaiah, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 20 (InterVarsity Press, 1999)
David A. Neale, Luke 1–9: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2011)
John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1998)
Barry Webb, The Message of Isaiah: On Eagles' Wings, The Bible Speaks Today (InterVarsity Press, 1996)
BibleProject, the Spirit of God podcast series