Friday 12/16/2022
Friday 12/16/2022
Luke 13:10-17
Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman on the Sabbath
10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. 14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” 15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” 17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
Few people in Jesus’ day could have been lowlier than this woman, crippled for 18 years. On top of the low social and legal status of women in general, and the limitations of her physical disability, most Hebrews at that time understood physical problems as a sign of God’s displeasure. When Jesus decisively set her free, he lifted a huge burden from her. No wonder Luke recorded that people “rejoiced at all the extraordinary things he was doing.” Use your imagination to try to feel the freedom and almost disbelieving joy the woman must have had when she was able to stand upright for the first time in 18 years! Has God ever worked, either directly or through a human agent, to free you from something that had bound you for a long time? Has God ever given you the privilege of being part of the process of freeing someone else from a long-standing burden? As at other times in Jesus’ ministry, in this story his healing power met guarded laws and traditions. Luke said the synagogue leader was “incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath.” With which are you more comfortable: established procedures and order, or God breaking into 21st-century lives in sometimes surprising, “disorderly,” joy-producing ways?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, your healing, freeing work brought joy, and often met opposition. Give me the wisdom to stay attuned to the ways you choose to work, even if that stretches my comfort zone. Amen.