Luke 13:10-17 Once again Jesus is teaching in a synagogue. Luke says that while Jesus was teaching, He saw a woman crippled by a spirit –her back was bent- and it seems to me that Luke implies that when Jesus saw this woman He interrupted his teaching, His sermon or Tora study, and called this unnamed woman over and said something this woman was expecting to hear for a long time: “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” and then He touched her. Immediately she was healed, immediately she could stand straight. If Luke’s story would end right there, we could imagine that everybody in that synagogue was happy for her. The 18 years of being bent had ended, now she is straight; the 18 years of looking down had ended, now she can look up to everybody’s eyes and faces, not to their feet as before; now she can praise God looking up to heaven, not to the ground. But Luke continues with the story saying that the leader of the synagogue was angry. Angry because his beloved law had been broken; upset because his beloved tradition was broken.
The law Moses received from God says that no one had to work on Sabbath. Sabbath was the day of the Lord and that is why no one could be healed on Saturday, because healing was considered a “job” that doctors do, and according to the interpretation of this leader, Jesus did a doctor’s job on Sabbath. Therefore, to their eyes Jesus had broken the Law.
Tradition was broken in diverse ways, first, Jesus talked to a woman in public, which should not be. Second, it was broken because He touched her, that, should not be either; third, it was broken because He called her to the front of the synagogue and that is a place reserved for men only. It is interesting what happened next, the leader of the synagogue did not face Jesus, he did not question Jesus for what He did, he did not complain to Jesus directly, instead he talked to the crowd: “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” In Spanish we have a saying “say it to John, so Peter can understand it.” Jesus knew that this leader was talking about what he had done; He knew this leader was talking to the crowd so Jesus could understand, and we all know Jesus’ answer: “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”
This is not the first time Jesus heals on Sabbath, and every time He did it, He found the same reaction, He faced the same confrontation. So, why did He do it time after time? It was not that Jesus loved trouble, no, it was because He had a message, and those leaders were not getting it. Jesus wanted them to understand that human dignity and human needs are more important that any law and any tradition. Law is only ink over paper written by a group who is in control; traditions are men made customs, but this woman -as every woman and man in the world – was created in God’s image, she was God’s creation; she was God’s piece of art.
Jesus made this clear when He called this woman “daughter of Abraham” -this is the only part – I am almost sure that we find this expression in the whole Bible. We find “son of Abraham” or “sons of Abraham” very often, but not daughter of Abraham. By calling her like that Jesus is lifting her up to the same level of any men present in that synagogue that day, including the leader.
Luke says that Jesus was teaching, but he does not say what He was teaching about. I would like to think that maybe He was teaching about freedom, about how the children of Abraham were set free from the bondage of slavery when suddenly He saw this cripple woman and felt the need to practice what He preach; He saw the opportunity to show them that God’s freedom is not an ideal only, but something that we can live and experience everyday even in our bodies, including the body of this cripple woman, whom many in that synagogue -I am sure- looked down to.
When the leaders of Israel spoke about freedom they always thought of the freedom from Egypt and Rome, but Jesus went beyond of that conception of freedom when He said to the woman “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Freedom in the Bible sisters and brothers is not only the ability to move from one place to another, or to freely express our thoughts and do whatever we want to do. Freedom in the Bible is the opportunity we all get from God to be what He planned for us to be; it is the opportunity we all have from God to live as God planned for us to live, free from infirmities and fear.
For eighteen years this woman lived a life God did not want her to live; for eighteen years she lived in a condition God didn’t want her to live. How do we know this? we know it because Luke says this was the work of a spirit, spirit of infirmity. It was Satan’s work. Jesus said: “This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage, by Satan for eighteen years.” Satan is the one responsible for this woman to walk with her back bent; Satan was the one responsible for this woman not to be able to look up to heaven, he and only he was responsible for this woman not to able to look in the eyes of her fellow sisters and brothers of Israel. However, that Sabbath in the synagogue, she heard and obey Jesus’ voice, and everything changed; that day in the synagogue Jesus not only restored her body but also her identity, she was reminded of who she was. She was not the cripple woman people saw; she was the daughter of Abraham; she belongs to God’s people.
Today our world is full of spiritually cripple people, people Satan held in bondage and restrain because the sin they practice. They need an encounter with Jesus; they need a touch from Jesus, they need to know that Jesus is here and alive; and He is ready and willing to release them. They need to hear that the lifestyle they are living is not the one God wants; it’s not the one God planned for them. They need to hear that there is something better and they can find it only by Jesus’ side, only by walking, obeying, and trusting Jesus.
They need to hear that drugs cripple our spirits; they need to hear that alcohol cripples our spirit; they need to know that relationships out of the matrimony cripples our spirit. But they also need to know that Jesus can make then free. They need to know that “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” Romans 10:13. Paul continues saying in verses 14 and 15: How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? The gospel we have, the gospel Jesus has entrusted to every one of us is the instrument He will use to release and heal all this people who need healing. But they have to hear that from us.
This woman that Luke is talking about was in the synagogue, she was member of the community of faith. In today’s church we also have spiritually cripple people. People who go to church and serve and praise the Lord but as the woman of the gospel are not able to look up to the Lord because of guilt and as a result of this guilt they cannot praise Him with freedom. Guilt is the result of unforgiving sins, and unforgiving sins are those we have not confessed, which in a way are the door we leave open for Satan to come in. They are the ropes we give Satan so he can bind us. In his second letter to Timothy chapter two verse 15 Paul gives Timothy a good advice: Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
Guilt is a heavy burden over our back, guilt does not allow us to stand straight before Him; guilt brings shame to us. Jesus does not want us to live with that burden and as He did with the woman, He wants to set us free.