Luke 13:10-17 - Week of August 19th-25th

Luke 13:10-17 - My First Impressions  

Sometimes pastoral ministry keeps you busy until Wednesday with other things. Here are my first thoughts for this week's passage. 

10. Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.

11. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.

Appeared? She was not there and then she was? More likely she had gone unseen, unnoticed until this point. As an invalid of sorts she would have been unimportant and largely ignored. Nobody sees her until Jesus sees her.

. . . And now, as long as scripture is read and studied, she will never go unseen again.  

12. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”

Jesus sets here free. She is in bondage to this ailment. She is unable to live a normal life, separated from society by something completely beyond her control a crippling illness that causes her to go through life hunched over. Jesus sees her, sees her infliction, sees her predicament, sees her imprisonment and sets her free.

13. When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

Her immediate response is to praise God. She realizes the place from which Jesus’ power comes, from God.

14. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

This man is not wrong. He is merely explaining God’s law regarding the Sabbath to the people. This is part of his job as leader of the synagogue.

15. But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?

It was common practice to allow your animals to have the freedom they needed, even on the Sabbath to get the food and water they needed. The Sabbath was not to result in a lack of basic needs being met of animals. They were to be set free to be able to do these things

16. And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”

This woman was held captive by this ailment. It bound her and hindered her. One of the function of the Sabbath is as celebration of the Jew’s liberation, to set someone free on the Sabbath is in line with the intent of the Sabbath.

17. When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

When the people see what Jesus is about they begin rejoicing.

There is joy in encountering and discovering who Jesus is and his intentions to set us free from all that binds and enslaves us.