Jesus, Clothed in Kindness and Silence

The most charged with meaning and beautiful poetic description of the Bible. Over the eternal figure of the Poor Man of God: “Here is my beloved Servant…Not crying out, not shouting, His voice will not be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench. (Is 42,1-3)

We are before the moving figure of the Poor Man from Nazareth: poor among the poor, cloaked in meekness and mercy. His voice is sweet as the breath of a breeze that passes. Like the stars when they submerge in the silent depth, no one in the street will hear His voice in the wind. He passed among us, on the wings of night, enveloped in a mantle of silence, sprinkling bright stars and seeds as He passed by.

He will pass over the broken reed with the gentleness of a butterfly, and he will not blow, like a storm wind, on the smoldering wick. He went through the squares and markets, collecting tears and turning them into pearls. He made silence his home, and no one heard him cry in the night.

With all this, the prophet wanted to say that Christ did not take on a tone of authority, nor did He raise His voice; He spoke with silent meekness and goodness. Where there was a crushed reed, He did not mistreat it to reduce it to dust, but that He leaned to the ground to fix it with tender hands; and on the smoldering wick He delicately breathed spirit and life. All of this is a poetic symbol of how Isaiah contemplated Jesus: Servant of God, clothed in kindness and silence.

Extracted from the book “Circular Letters” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga