“He has sent me to bind the heart which has been shattered…”

Isaiah 61:1d

            When I read this part of the verse, my mind cannot help but to think back to the promise that was made by God earlier in Isaiah 35:4:

“Say to those whose hearts are hasty; be strong and you must not fear.

Behold, your God of vengeance will come in the recompense of God—

He will come and save you.”

And indeed, now, those whose hearts have caused them to run ahead, chasing after their own plans and dreams instead of chasing after holiness, will find that God, in his might and in his power, will come to save them—save them by sending his Son, Jesus Christ.  And Christ will be the one who takes their hearts, as broken, war-torn, and shattered as they are, and bind them back together.  Note the power of this great and wonderful promise, Jesus is not simply one to put back together a heart that has been fractured, like a bone that is broken might be set in a splint or a cast, but the Hebrew word used here is derived from the Hebrew verb, rb;v’ (shavar), which means “to shatter.”  Any human doctor can mend a fractured bone, but it takes God to mend that which has been shattered beyond recognition.  And note that when the Hebrews were speaking about the “heart,” they were not speaking simply in terms of one’s emotional well-being or of one’s passions as we often do; when the Hebrews spoke of the heart, they had in mind the intellect and the personality—that which makes you, you. And this is the work of Christ.  Jesus is more than a family counselor or a psychologist helping you to get your emotions in check.  And he does more than to nurture bruised egos—Jesus mends lives!  And Jesus does far more than mend lives that have been beaten around and bruised by the world, but he mends lives that have been blasted away, shattered, demolished, and utterly crushed, and he restores us whole!

            I am reminded of the story of Humpty Dumpty.  Indeed, all of the kings horses and men could do nothing to patch that shattered egg and to restore him to strength.  Yet, Christ is far more than a servant of a human king; he is the King of Kings, Son of the Living God and creator of the universe.  Indeed, there is no life, no person who is too broken and shattered that he is beyond the ability of our Lord, Jesus Christ to put back together.  Yet, there is another difference.  When Jesus puts a life back together, he does not simply restore one to health, but he restores one slowly into the image of himself—we are remade not for a fallen world, but Christ’s remaking is designed to prepare us for glory!  What a wonderful promise that we find in our great and glorious Lord!

“He is the one who heals a shattered heart;

and the one who binds their sorrows.”

Psalm 147:3

Into Thy gracious hands I fall,

And with the arms of faith embrace;

O King of glory, hear my call!

O raise me, heal me by Thy grace!

-Wolfgang Dessler