The Jesus Who SurprisesExemplo

A Bruised Reed

Over the past several years, I’ve had the privilege of ministering in prisons where women are being discipled. I see in the women I meet there a remarkable “fullness of joy.” Though God has shaken their world and they have lost so much, they are experiencing His presence. Every time I go to these women, I leave thinking, It is true, Lord. They have nothing, and yet they have everything that really matters. They have You. And in Your presence is fullness of joy. 

So many women in prison suffered so much in childhood and then attached themselves to a man they thought would be their ticket to freedom. Instead, that man often ends up being their ticket to drugs, prostitution, and prison. 

When these women first come into prison, they are bruised and broken. Yet just as Jesus had mercy for the downtrodden when He was on earth, He still does. His compassion was constantly welling up: toward the widow whose only son had died; toward the adulteress thrown at His feet; toward the despised, the blind, and the brokenhearted. We read in Isaiah this remarkable prophecy about Jesus: 

A bruised reed he will not break,

and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

—Isaiah 42:3 

But there is more to melt our hearts. This verse is not just telling us of Christ’s tenderness; it is also showing us what it took to accomplish this. The word bruised means a deep wound and is also translated “crushed.” This is the same Hebrew word used in Genesis when we are told that Satan will bruise Christ’s heel but Christ will crush Satan’s head. 

Imagine a slithering poisonous snake coming toward those you love, and the only way you can stop him is to stomp on his head with your bare heel. That will kill him, but first he will bite and poison you and you will die. That’s what Christ did for us. In Isaiah 53:5, this same word bruised is used again, though it’s translated “crushed” in the more modern translations: “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”

He saw our brokenness and was broken Himself, that we might be healed. 

What does it mean to you that Jesus was broken and crushed just as you feel you are sometimes?