Saturday, July 19, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Departure
When Jesus realized the Pharisees planned to kill him, he withdrew from that place. Many people followed him, and he cured them all.
And they cried, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Although a few days later they cried, “Crucify him!”) God’s plans are not our plans.
Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
       my beloved in whom I delight;
   I shall place my Spirit upon him,
       and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
   He will not contend or cry out,
       nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.
   A bruised reed he will not break,
       a smoldering wick he will not quench,
   until he brings justice to victory.
       And in his name the Gentiles will hope.
Embracing the weakness and fragility of a bruised reed or smoldering wick isn’t natural to those who want to be victors. It isn’t comely! But what price victory? Those last two lines of Isaiah’s prophecy change everything. We know the adrenalin and conquering energy of victory (although divine justice remains a mystery),. Like Tacitus, “we make a desert and call it peace.”
But our peace is not God’s peace.
In Luke Jesus cries out alone on a hill overlooking Jerusalem, “If you had only known today what would bring you peace … but it is hidden from your eyes.” Jesus is recapping history and predicting the future, knowing it will be no different. In any politically or socially acceptable peace we must be the victors, who claim the spoils and get to tell the story. This is not the peace of God which transcends all understanding. This peace will not guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And it is never peace for long, not even for the victors.
Jesus, bruised reed that he is, identifies with the losers, the terrified, the slain. His justice, the victory in Jesus, includes us all and brings true peace, eternally restoring us to the Garden, unquestioned confidence in our Father, and cooperation with each of our fellow created children.
The children of Israel set out from Rameses. 600,000 men along with as many women, along with the children, along with thousands of livestock, had only unleavened bread to eat at first. But they had stayed in Egypt four hundred and thirty years, and now God led them out of the land of Egypt, out of their slavery.
Toward the end of my life on earth I see a little more clearly a path through the desert, lasting longer than the Israelites’ forty years but going in circles as much or more than they went in circles. My parents welcomed me to their world, inviting me to jump right in. They did not see it as a departure then. Wasn’t I just arriving at the Lincoln station?
But another vantage point shows me not arriving, but setting off on a journey marked out, with God’s clear destination in mind, whether visible to me or not. In The Chosen, a few hours before his arrest Jesus hears David singing Psalm 5. As with Saul hundreds of years earlier, David’s music quieted Jesus’ sobbing over the future of Jerusalem. David looked into Jesus’ eyes, recognizing his savior. David the warrior beecame the peace-filled singer and shepherd one more time.
This was a night of vigil for the LORD,
as he led them out of the land of Egypt;
so on this same night
all the children of Israel must keep a vigil for the LORD
throughout their generations.
Then David turned away and the vision ended. Jesus was once again alone, but confident in his Father and full of love for all of us, and he continued on his journey, this “bruised wick” who changes all our lives forever.
(Exodus 12, Psalm 136, 2 Corinthians 5, Matthew 12)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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