Saturday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 16, 2022

Matthew 12, 14-21

The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many people followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall place my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope”.

“The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.”  St. Matthew tells us this as a culmination of a series of reproaches they had received from Jesus.  In the verses immediately before today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord had cured a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.  It is curious to note that the Lord himself had not performed any physical action in this healing.  He had told the man to stretch out his hand, and the man had been healed.  The stretching out of the hand could not be construed as breaking the Sabbath, nor could the command that the man do this.  The Pharisees attribute the healing to an exercise of the Lord’s power, yet the miraculous healing could not have been accomplished by a mere man.  Like the forgiveness of sins, something of this kind could only have been done by Almighty God, and surely the Pharisees could not accuse God of breaking the Sabbath.  Their plotting to put the Lord to death also flies in the face of their knowledge of his power.  If he could cure a man instantly as he had the man with the withered hand, what chance did they have if they came up against him?  Their hatred of him exceeded their ability to reason.

“When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place.”  That is, when they began plotting, he withdrew from that place.  He withdrew so that he might not be hampered by them but also in order to give them the opportunity to repent.  Often when a person or thing that displeases us is no longer in our view we forget about it and move on to other business.  

“Many people followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known.”  That is, he warned those whom he cured not to run through all the villages in the vicinity proclaiming what the Lord had done for them.  When a good turn of events happens to a person, he is tempted to make it widely known for one of two reasons: to cause others to rejoice with him; or to make himself the center of everyone’s attention.  In either case, the Lord’s work would have been hindered by increased crowds and by inflaming further the wrath of the Pharisees.  “This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Isaiah the prophet.”  Matthew now uses a verse from the Scriptures to show that this was how the Messiah was supposed to work: not raising up armies of followers, but quietly going about the work for which he was sent.  Matthew also uses these particular verses to describe the Messiah’s work in striking contrast to the verses the Pharisees pointed to as the work the Messiah would do (for instance, raise up armies) when he came.

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight.”  Key to the understanding of the Messiah are the songs of the servant in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, of which this is one.  These baffled the Pharisees, who could not figure out who this “servant” was.  We see this in the case of the deacon Philip and the Ethiopian official in Acts 8, 32-34.  The official is not some uneducated man who happened to pick up the scroll of Isaiah and did not know what it was.  Either he was himself a Jew or a proselyte.  The speculation varied from the servant being Isaiah, the Prophet’s son, Israel personified, or some future prophet.  One thing he was not was the Messiah, according to the Pharisees.  “I shall place my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.”  The Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus at his Baptism.  He began the proclamation of justice to the Gentiles in brief excursions he made into Gentile lands.  Later, he proclaimed the Gospel to them through the Apostles.  “He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.”  That is, he will not proclaim his own glory but the glory of the Father, which he will do through teaching and healing the sick.  “A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory.”  This brings to mind the Blessed Virgin’s words in her Magnificat: “He has exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things” (Luke 1, 52-53).   “And in his name the Gentiles will hope”.  Matthew is quoting from Isaiah 42, 1-4, but the last line seems to be either a variant of Isaiah known to Matthew or his interpretation of the last line, a literal translation of the Hebrew of Isaiah 42, 4 being “He shall not falter, nor be crushed, till he set his judgment in the earth, and the islands shall wait for his teaching.”  We note too that Matthew did not quote the whole verse.  In any event, the sense is the same for “And in his name the Gentiles will hope” and “The islands shall wait for his teaching”, for the far-off islands were inhabited by the Gentiles.  

The words quoted by Matthew to describe the Lord’s work are good for describing ours, too.  Day by day we live our quiet lives away from the great events of the world, doing good, praying, and awaiting in hope the second coming of the Lord Jesus.