May the Twenty-first
Human Frailties
Isaiah xlii. 1-7.
What a winsome revelation of the delicate gentleness of the Lord! “The bruised reed”—is it the impaired musical reed, that cannot now emit a musical sound, and can only be thrown away? He will not snap it and cast it to the void. The discordant life can be made tuneful again: He will put “a new song in my mouth.”
“And the smoking flax”—the life that has lost its fire, and therefore its light, its enthusiasm, and therefore its ideals; the life that is smouldering into the cold ashes of moral and spiritual death! He will not stamp it out with His foot. The smouldering fire can be rekindled, a spent enthusiasm can be revived. “He shall baptize you... with fire!”
And so He comes to minister to the infirm. He comes to restore injured faculty; “to open blind eyes.” He comes to give vision to restored sight: “to be a light of the Gentiles.” And He comes to endow the restored life with a rich and gracious freedom: “to bring out the prisoners from the prison.” Sight, and light, and freedom! And my Lord is at the gate, and these gifts are in His hand.