Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased!

 But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there.  And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.  Yet He warned them not to make Him known, 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 declare justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel nor cry out,
Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.
A bruised reed He will not break,
And smoking flax He will not quench,
Till He sends forth justice to victory;
And in His name Gentiles will trust."

 - Matthew 12:15-21

Yesterday we read that Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath.  And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!"  But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:  how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?  Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?  Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.  But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless.  For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."  Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue.  And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand.  And they asked Him, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" -- that they might accuse Him.  Then He said to them, "What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?  Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?  Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."  Then He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."  And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.  Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him. 

 But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there.  And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.  Yet He warned them not to make Him known, 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 declare justice to the Gentiles.  He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.  A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to victory; And in His name Gentiles will trust."  Christ's refusal to fully disclose His identity as Messiah is foreseen by Isaiah, my study bible says (Isaiah 42:1-4).  Among His reasons for secrecy are:  the growing hostility of the Jewish leaders; the people's misunderstanding of the Messiah as an earthly, political leader; and Jesus' desire to evoke genuine faith not based only on marvelous signs.  The Servant of Isaiah refers first to Christ, and by extension to all those who follow Him.  In Isaiah's prophecy is also foreseen the mission to the Gentiles after Pentecost.

In a worldly sense, we tend to view appearances or images as full manifestations of a concrete reality.  But in God's sight, we get quite a different perspective, particularly when it comes to Godly attributes, like power or beauty or goodness, and even truth.  Isaiah's prophecy makes it clear in any number of places that the Holy One, the Messiah, does not come to us in a form that makes it clear to common sight that He is divine.  He has, instead, the appearance of a servant.  He does not come as a conquering warrior or one who declares his achievements in an earthly sense, nor a fearsome warlord such as people understand of history, but rather "He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.  A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench."  This is the paradoxical way of God.  True to the word of my study bible, it is the way the holy has come to work in the world as well, and among those who follow Him.   When St. Paul prayed about an infirmity that plagued him, he was told, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness."  St. Paul adds, "Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Beauty is also seen as the grace which accompanies a form that the world might not recognize.  In Isaiah 53:2, we read of the mystery of the self-emptying beauty of the Servant of God:  "without beauty, without majesty (we saw him), no looks to attract our eyes."  Paul Evdokimov calls this a type of kenotic veil thrown over His splendor.  St. Peter writes, "Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God" (1 Peter 3:3).  In other words, notions of external beauty may be instead within, and imperishable.  Evdokimov writes that "in this case, the very infirmity becomes ineffably 'beautiful' for in going beyond its infirmity in a veritable trans-figuration, the obstacle is made to serve the spirit in a mysterious bending to the secret destiny of a being."  He compares the tradition of the "fools for Christ," saints who intentionally appeared to be crazy or in some way outside the norms of society, as those who went to the depths of shame as part of their vocation in order to sow light -- a "show," he writes, which was often seen only by the angels.   This paradoxical beauty is only found in humility, with our example set by Christ.  There is no more powerful example of this than Christ on the Cross, a veil of shame hiding the hour of His glory from those who could not truly see.  It is something so seemingly alien to our world that is bathed in increasing power and reliance upon images, which are blasted upon us in every form and at ever-increasing speeds and intensity through the power of media and technology.  One wonders where humility may be valued in the cultures of technology, or where a search for genuine beauty will be found or even attempted in generations who can rely on a kind of internal loop of feedback only they increasingly select for themselves.  Perhaps this lack of value of humility or understanding of inner worth and beauty that does not rely upon images in the eyes of others is responsible to some extent for problems of violence and inexplicable crimes of rage among the young.  It may give us a choice as a successful way for the vulnerable to deal with bullying, as opposed to the images of violence and absolute victory or vindication in popular media and fiction.  In this sense, Christ as healer is a key to what we are missing, and when the Church fails to uphold this paradox and gives us instead only models of worldly "success," then we are failing our children and its subsequent generations.  The entire "model" of Isaiah is one of humility, even suffering, and servitude as that which characterizes the most beautiful One of all, the One who will "send forth justice to victory" and in whose "name Gentiles will trust."  This is a far cry from those who make sure to project the image of morality to the world in their charitable deeds (Matthew 6:1-2), or who constantly seek only to shame others.  In the Gospels we have plenty of examples of the latter in those who seek to shame Christ or John the  Baptist, and do not recognize their holiness or the work of God in their ministries (see Wednesday's reading).  Let us consider, then, Isaiah's Suffering Servant, and the beauty of God at work in those whom perhaps only the angels see in truth.  It is all about the soul, the truth of a person, the heart and the inner life, the sacrifices we may make in service, in the love of God that is genuine and flows to others even in ways not seen by the rest of us.