How Jesus and Satan treat the Weak

“See the contrary disposition of Christ and Satan and his instruments.  Satan attacks us when we are weakest.  

But Christ will mend in us all the breaches sin and Satan have made.  He ‘binds up the brokenhearted’ (Isaiah 61:1).  And as a mother treats most tenderly the most diseased and weakest child, so does Christ most mercifully bend down to the weakest people.  

He puts an instinct into the weakest things to rely for support on something stronger than themselves.  So the vine clings to the elm.  The church’s awareness of her weakness makes her willing to lean on her Beloved.”

Richard Sibbes, “The Bruised Reed,” in Works (Edinburgh, 1979), I:46.  Style updated.