Matthew 12:15-21
When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, and he ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
“Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,
my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not wrangle or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.
He will not break a bruised reed
or quench a smoldering wick
until he brings justice to victory.
And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
Both timing and fulfillment are central issues in all the gospels. Particularly in Matthew, as we have seen, connecting Jesus’ words and deeds to the fulfillment of the promises of God to Israel is an important and persistent theme. And so in these verses Matthew again hears in the words of an earlier prophet an apt description of what Jesus is doing and, conversely, understands and interprets earlier promises in light of the story of Jesus’ life and ministry.
Does that make sense? It’s very easy for us to think of prophecy in terms of some kind of secret code about the future, a code we are meant to figure out in order to uncover a series of predetermined events. But I don’t think Matthew or his contemporaries imagined prophecy in such a static way at all. Rather, they experienced fulfilled prophecy as something more dynamic and so sought to make sense of Jesus’ life and ministry and proclamation of God’s kingdom in light of patterns of God’s activity they experienced in the writings of the Scriptures.
Isaiah, in this sense, provides a frame of reference for Matthew to understand and interpret Jesus’ activities and actions even as Jesus’ activities and actions confirm the promises God made through Isaiah centuries before. God is still at work, Matthew wants us to know, as through Jesus’ ministry to all those who are vulnerable and hurting God takes the side of all who have been bruised and feel like smoldering wicks.
But there is also the matter of timing. At this point in the story, Jesus is aware of the hostility directed at him and so retreats for he has more work to do. The day will come when he must take on his adversaries directly, and that conflict – also in line with Isaiah’s surprising construction of God’s promised Servant – will unfold in a way no one expects. Because, in the end, while you may not be able to fight city hall, you can still transform it.
Prayer: Dear God, throughout history you have provided prophets and evangelists to point us to your activity in the world. Help us to recognize the pattern of your activity that we may see it unfold in our own lives today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
When Jesus heals the crowds, this is a pattern that reveals his compassion on the sick and vulnerable. And since the “many crowds” before this have included Gentiles from the Decapolis and beyond the Jordan (as in Mt. 4:25 and 8:1), this also fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of proclaiming justice to the Gentiles, who will hope in him (Mt. 12:18,21).
Yet it is also true that when these “many crowds” gather around Jesus in Mt. 13:2, that Jesus contrasts his disciples with the crowds who fulfill Isaiah 6 due to their hearing but not understanding (Mt. 13:10-15). So showing compassion on crowds that include Gentiles points to the future pattern of God’s love reaching out to all the Gentiles. But it doesn’t mean that God takes the side of all these crowds (other than showing compassion on the needy). And when Jesus finally confronts the Jerusalem leaders and becomes the suffering servant (of Isa. 53), he reveals another pattern–faithful witness unto death–rather than a pattern of transforming city hall.