We continue our journey with the Holy Fathers through chapter 12. Verses 17, 18, and 19:
“That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased. I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.”
Saint John Chrysostom explains here why the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah is cited. Only hatred could have prevented the Jews of that time from seeing all those Old Testament prophecies that were being fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. These are Chrysostom’s words: “Lest you should be astonished when you hear of what happened and of their extraordinary hatred, the Evangelist introduces the prophet who foretold it. The prophets foretold everything concerning Christ with such detail that they did not omit even this, but described all His ways, even the very intention with which Jesus acted—so that you might know that they spoke all things by the counsel of the Spirit. If human secrets are impossible to know, how much more impossible was it to understand Christ’s purposes without the revelation of the Spirit… The prophet glorifies Christ’s meekness and ineffable power, opens great and wide doors to the Gentiles, foretells the calamities that would befall the Jews, and shows Christ’s unity of will with the Father. Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased. If God has chosen Christ, then He does not transgress the Law as an adversary or enemy of the Lawgiver, but as One who thinks and acts in harmony with the Father. Further, speaking of His meekness, Isaiah says: He will not quarrel nor cry out. Jesus desired to heal them of their sickness; yet when they rejected Him, He did not oppose them even in this.”
Euthymius Zigabenus draws attention to the very wording of the prophecy and shows that it describes the two natures of the God-man Jesus Christ. This teacher of the Church writes: “‘My Beloved’ is written with reference to the divinity of Jesus. In whom My soul is well pleased refers to the human nature of Jesus Christ. He is the Beloved as the Only-begotten Son; He is well-pleasing to the Father, because through Jesus God the Father willed good—that is, the salvation of humanity.”
The next two verses:
“A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench, until He brings justice to victory. And in His Name the nations will hope.”
In these verses Chrysostom shows both the omnipotence of the Lord and, at the same time, His meekness towards the Jews who hated Him. These are his words: “Showing Jesus’ power and their weakness, the prophet says: A bruised reed He will not break. It would have been easy for Christ to break them all like a reed—and like a reed already nearly broken. A smoldering wick He will not quench. Here the prophet shows the inflamed anger of the Jews and Christ’s power, which is able to restrain their anger and extinguish it very easily; and this reveals His great meekness. What then? Will it always be so? Will Jesus endure to the end those who think evil and nurture hatred against Him? No. This is what the words mean: until He brings justice to victory. And in His Name the nations will hope. Paul speaks similarly: We are ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete (2 Cor. 10:6). What do the words until He brings justice to victory mean? When He has accomplished all His works, then He will take vengeance—and that completely; the Jews will be subjected to calamities, when Jesus raises a radiant trophy—when His justice triumphs over them and leaves them not even the slightest excuse for shameless contradiction. Scripture commonly calls justice ‘judgment.’ Yet the works of divine providence are not limited merely to the punishment of the unbelieving; on the contrary, the Lord will also draw the whole world to Himself—therefore He added: in His Name the nations will hope. And that you might know that this too accords with the will of the Father, the prophet confirmed this at the very beginning with the words: My Beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased.”
Saint Basil the Great interprets these verses and connects them with an important law of spiritual life. We often strive for perfectionism, in the sense that if we are unable to do something perfectly, we are ready to abandon it altogether. For example, if I cannot fast fully in accordance with the Church typikon, then I will not fast at all. Or if I have no desire to pray, if I am lazy or distracted, I will not even try to pray, because—as the saying goes—“God does not accept such a prayer.” And this is how Saint Basil writes about this: “What do the words a bruised reed and a smoldering wick mean, and in what sense will Jesus not break the one nor quench the other? A bruised reed, in my opinion, is a person who fulfills the commandment of God while still enslaved to some passion. Such a person should not be broken and cut off, but rather healed, as the Lord taught when He said: Take heed that you do not do your alms before men, to be seen by them; otherwise you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven; and as the Apostle commands, saying: Do all things without murmuring and disputing (Phil. 2:14), and elsewhere: Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain glory (Phil. 2:3). A smoldering wick means one who fulfills the commandment without fervent desire and perfect effort, but with laziness and weakness; such a one too should not be stopped, but rather encouraged by reminders of judgment and the promises of God.”
As for ourselves and our attitude towards the perfect fulfillment of the commandments, Saint Poemen the Great uttered an instruction to a monk that is recorded in the Sayings of the Fathers: “There were two farmers who lived in one city; and one of them, having sown, produced a little wheat mixed with weeds, while the other, being negligent to sow, produced nothing. When famine came, which of the two would survive?” The monk replied: “The one who produced a little impure wheat.” The elder then said: “So let us also sow a little, even if it is impure, lest we die of hunger.” Thus, even though we see that our effort to fulfill the commandments is not free from the influence of passions, this is not a reason to abandon life in Christ.
Saint Maximus the Confessor sees in these words the ideal of our relationship as Christians towards our neighbours as well: “He who imitates the Lord and relates to people with compassion does not allow a person bruised by sin to be broken completely; if someone’s intellect, because of virtue, is wrapped in the smoke of vainglory, he does not extinguish it, but allows that striving to be nourished until such a person comes fully to his senses. I think this is also the meaning of the words that together with the good seed the weeds grow—that is, together with virtue grow the passions of man-pleasing and vainglory. The Sower of souls commands that the weeds not be uprooted until the virtues are strengthened, lest the one who wishes to uproot these passions uproot together with them the striving towards virtue.” We should keep the words of Saint Maximus in mind: progress in the spiritual life is gradual, and time is required for virtue to be firmly established.
Saint Hilary of Poitiers says that yet another meaning is concealed in these words—namely, that the Lord preserves spiritually weakened Israel, because He sees that it can bear fruit if it repents: “The bruised reed was not broken, nor was the smoldering wick extinguished; that is, the frail and afflicted bodies of the Gentiles were not broken, but rather preserved for salvation. The small fire, like that found in a smoldering wick, was not extinguished; that is, weak Israel was not deprived of the spirit of ancient grace, since there remains the possibility of attaining the fullness of light in the time of repentance. But this is granted within the determinations of an appointed time—until He brings justice to victory; that is, having destroyed the power of death, Jesus will return in His glory, judge, and the Gentiles will hope in His Name through faith.”
Saint John of Kronstadt writes the following in his diary: “O divine meekness of my Lord! O wondrous longsuffering! Jesus does not extinguish, does not cut off our life when He sees that there exist in our soul even the beginnings of repentance, when there is only the smoke of repentance—the beginning of correction—and not yet the fire of zeal for virtue. A bruised reed He will not break. Although I myself am weak in virtue, like a reed that bends in every direction under the force of the wind, my meek and long-suffering Lord still does not break me or cut me off, but patiently endures and waits to see whether I will be established in virtue. Glory to Your meekness, guilelessness, and longsuffering, O Lord!”
Before us is the next passage, verses 22–24:
“Then they brought to Him a demoniac who was blind and mute, and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, ‘Can this be the Son of David?’ But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.’”
John Chrysostom here reveals the full extent of the Pharisaic hatred and hostility towards the Lord Jesus. He shows that, in a certain sense, they even surpassed the malice of the devil himself: “O satanic wickedness! The devil had closed both entrances through which a man could come to faith—sight and hearing. But Christ opens both. And all the people were amazed and said, ‘Can this be the Son of David?’ But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.’ One might ask, what so important did the people say? And yet the Pharisees could not endure even this. They are always tormented by beneficence shown to one’s neighbour, and nothing grieves them so much as the salvation of human beings. Although Jesus withdrew and allowed their anger to subside, the evil flared up again as soon as a new beneficent act was performed, and the Pharisees were stirred even more than the devil. The demon departed from the body and fled, saying nothing; but the Pharisees, at one moment attempting to kill Jesus and at another striving to slander Him—when they failed in the former—sought to obscure His glory.”
Saint Hilary of Poitiers continues and writes: “The Pharisees accused the apostles of plucking grain—that is, of prematurely gathering people from the whole world—because it was preached that mercy is greater than sacrifice, and because the man with the withered hand was healed in the synagogue. And all this in no way aided the conversion of Israel; rather, the Pharisees even intended to kill Jesus. Thus, after this, it followed that in the image of one man the salvation of the Gentiles would be accomplished: that the man who had been a dwelling place of demons, blind and mute, should be prepared to receive God and to see God in Christ, to glorify the works of Christ by confessing God. The people were astonished by this deed, but the hatred of the Pharisees increased. For since the greatness of Jesus’ works surpassed human ability, they shamelessly rejected the confession of God by an even greater transgression of unbelief; they could not say that it was a human work, yet they were unwilling to acknowledge it as divine, and they claimed that all of Jesus’ authority over demons came from Beelzebul, the ruler of demons.”
Blessed Jerome sees in this event a mysterious foreshadowing of something that continues to take place to this very day in the life of the Orthodox Church. These are his words: “In one and the same man three signs are manifested: the blind sees, the mute speaks, and the one who was under demonic power is set free. It is true that this happened literally at that time; yet it is fulfilled daily also in the conversion of the faithful. For after the demons are cast out, they first come to understand the light of faith, and then the mouths that had previously been silent are opened to glorify God.”
Adapted for the contemporary reader based on patristic interpretations by Stanoje Stanković
