For The Crushed

Our Compassionate King Gives Us Hope

4.13.25 [Isaiah 42:1-4] River of Life (Palm Sunday)

Imagine this scene. You walk in the door and the house is a total mess. How do you respond? 

Home sweet home? Some of us don’t really care. We know how to navigate the mess because it’s ours. We know where stuff is. 

Others cannot put up with a mess. Just walking into a messy home can cause your blood pressure to rise. We will not sit still until the mess has been addressed and everything has been cleaned up.  

Now I want you to imagine a second scene. You have company coming and they’re kind of a big deal. So, even if you’re kind of a slob by nature, you spend weeks deep-cleaning your home. I’m talking beating the rugs with a broom outside, deep cleaning. Hosing out the trash cans, deep cleaning. Pulling out the fridge and cleaning behind it, deep cleaning. After everything is perfect—every spot is spotless and every cranny is clean—you run to the grocery store to pick up a couple of items.

But when you walk back in the house, with minutes to spare before your big deal guests arrive—you find a total disaster, that’s only getting worse by the minute. And the culprit is a beloved family member. Your spouse, your kids, or a pet. 

Now how are you going to respond? Would you scream? Would you cry? Would you punch a hole in the wall? It would be hard to keep your cool. It would be hard not to yell and scream. It would be hard not to lose your patience and fly off the handle. It would be hard not to say or do some things that you would later regret. 

Why is the reaction so different in the second scene versus the first? For one, company is coming. But secondly, you just poured all that energy and effort into getting the place clean and it was ruined as soon as you stepped away. In the first scene, the mess might be irritating. In the second, it’s infuriating. 

These scenes are hypothetical for us. But they help us get in the right frame of mind for our Isaiah 42. In these four verses, there’s a word that pops up three times—Justice. Justice has become a hot button topic in our country for more than a couple of years. But like  many words and concepts today, everybody seems to have their own definition of the word and understanding of the idea. 

For some justice is the same thing as fairness. Everyone gets treated the same. Everyone has the same rights. Everyone has the same opportunities. But fairness falls short in a lot of ways. We don’t all have the same gifts or needs. Treating everyone the same ignores our individuality and our community needs. Fairness sounds fine, in theory, but justice, real justice, is much more challenging.

In the Bible, justice is much like the pursuit of a clean house. Justice is ordering and organizing things the way they ought to be. Justice is putting everything and everyone right where they belong. That kind of justice demands deep wisdom and great power. 

And that’s what God is after. Justice. He looks at the world that he fashioned and made perfectly clean, his house, and he sees the mess we’ve made. And we have made a mess of his house. 

At first, we try to deny it. We didn’t make the mess. Others did. We try to place the blame at the feet of others—and there are plenty of others who have contributed to this mess—but we have, too. 

How many times has our anger made our lives—and this world—messier? We lose our cool and say things that we almost instantly regret. We make rash decisions and react recklessly in ways that cannot be ignored or undone. 

How many times has our laziness made our lives—and this world—messier? We know what needs to be done. We need to pray more. We need to study more. We need to have a tough conversation. We need to practice some self-discipline. We know exactly what needs to be done by us. And yet we procrastinate. We delay. We dilly-dally. We make excuses. We hope the problem will just go away. We hope someone else will do what needs to be done. When no one else steps up, we cut corners and rush the whole thing because we weren’t interested in the hard work it took. 

How many times has our pride or our selfishness made our lives—and this world—a bigger mess? We take someone’s words or actions in the worst way possible and we get bent out of shape about it. We begin to despise them and attack their character at every chance we get. Or we take advantage of some person or some situation. We’re not breaking any civil laws, except the divine law of love for our neighbor. We finagle things to break better for us financially. We take credit for more than what we contributed to the project. We demand that others do things our way, and then we make life so difficult for them that they eventually give in to our demands. 

How many times has worrying made our lives—and this world—messier? We fixate on all kinds of things outside our control. We stay up late at night and we’re in a bad mood the next day. We grumble and complain instead of giving thanks and trusting the Lord. 

When we are confronted with the messes we’ve made, we play one last card. The comparison card. My messes aren’t great. But they’re not: fill in the blank. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t steal. I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t hurt anyone, that I know of.

Even if that were true, it still doesn’t make our messes disappear. Our problem isn’t just that we make messes. Our problem is that we are a spiritual mess. And we are no more capable of fixing the spiritual mess that is our hearts and minds and souls and lives than a dog can repair that shoe that he tore apart. We need another. 

And that’s who God speaks of in Isaiah 42. Is. 42:1 Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.

Jesus, who created this world, knew what a mess mankind had made of it. Even the Holy City of Jerusalem, the one place that should have been clean and right and full of justice and righteousness, was none of those things. It’s enough to make a person rage and scream at the top of their lungs. 

But not the Lord’s servant. Is. 42:2 He does not shout or cry out. He does not raise his voice in the streets. A couple of times, we are told that Jesus was indignant—which can mean that he was frustrated with what he was seeing. A leper cries out for cleansing and parents are bringing their little ones to have Jesus bless them. Each time, the weak and weary are being held back from healing and hope. But each time, Jesus responds with compassion for them.

Is. 42:2 He does not   shout or cry out. That’s not to say that Jesus never raised his voice. But when he did, it wasn’t because he was losing an argument. Jesus raised his voice when he invited the people of Jerusalem to Jn 7:37-38 come to him and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow within them. Jesus raised his voice when he Jn 11:43 called out in a loud voice to Lazarus who was in the tomb. Jesus raised his voice when he cried out to his Father, Mt. 27:46 My God, My God why have you forsaken me? 

Compare that with the loud shouts in the streets of Mk. 15:13 Crucify him! And when Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor who didn’t care about righteousness, justice, or truth, asked them Mk. 15:14 Why? What crime has he committed, they shouted all the louder, ‘Crucify him!’ Yet Jesus did not respond or retaliate. He was silent to the slaughter. He did not open his mouth. He did not falter. He was not discouraged. He came to establish justice on earth. He came to set things right. He came to clean house for us all. 

He sees people who have made big messes, who are big messes and he does not break them in half. He sees those who are failing and faltering and running on spiritual fumes and he does not snuff them out. Is. 42:3 A bruised reed, he will not break. A smoldering wick, he will not snuff out. He will not falter or be discouraged by our big mess. Is. 42:3 In faithfulness he will bring forth justice. He has come to clean house, but he does so with gentleness and compassion. 

That explains his humble and gentle approach on Palm Sunday. He had come to clean house, to cleanse the world of its sins. The true Son of God Col. 1:16 who created all things in heaven & on earth, including the authority that had been given to the Sanhedrin, the Roman governor, and the High Priest, had supremacy in everything. But when he came to Jerusalem he came as a humble servant king. He was gentle, even when his enemies demanded he rebuke his shouting followers. He rode a work animal because he had come to do the work that all the blood of animals could not. 

The king who comes in the name of the Lord came to die for our sins. The Prince of Peace took our place so that the peace of heaven might extend down to earth. The King of highest glory came so that he might be treated like the lowest of criminals. 

Jesus did all this so that bruised reeds and smoldering wicks like us might have hope. We cannot set things right. We cannot cleanse ourselves. But God’s chosen servant, the One in whom the Lord Almighty delights, has done it. Ps. 118:23-25 The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day, let us rejoice and be glad. Lord, save us. Lord, grant us victory. Ps. 118:29 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good and gentle, humble and faithful. His love endures forever. Amen.