Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 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. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 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.” 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? 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?” 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. (Luke 13:10-17, NRSV)
My question after reading this text is the woman has been ill now for 18 years, what is another 12 hours going to hurt? Why didn’t Jesus just wait?
Well there is a lot to be seen from this, one is the point of view in which you see the text. Which got me thinking about Star Wars. In particular this scene from Return of the Jedi:
in this scene Luke confronts OB1 about what he told him about his father. He said that his father was murdered by Darth Vader, not that Darth Vader was his father. But the spin that OB1 puts on it is the truth from a certain point of view… And think about it. What do you hold true? I believe that Jesus is the messiah the chosen one of God foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures and therefore the truth I believe is based in that point of view. Things we believe are based on the point of view we view them from.
This is true of the leader of the synagogue where Jesus heals on the sabbath. You see the Israelites have the sabbath commandments which they see as a huge weight lifted off their shoulders. The laws were not given to them until after they were freed from the slavery of Egypt. So to tell a people who had always been told when to work and what to do, without a day off, that now they have to take a day with no work, this was not a commandment that is heard as a burden, but is a freeing weight removing wonderful announcement. They are free and get to rest! They will do whatever they need to to keep this commandment and help everyone else see the need fro it. Thus when Jesus sees this woman that is ill and knows the whole body is ailing because of this, He suspends the law of the sabbath to uphold the law of love. HE heals and brings back right relationships, and thus makes the body well. But the leader can’t see this because the law he holds dear has been compromised.
We all have a law that we will do whatever it takes to make sure it does not get compromised. We all have that thing we get uptight and very nervous when someone or something gets close to breaking it. One of my things is Christmas music during Advent. Worship in Advent is to be expecting and waiting for the coming Christ child, but if we are singing songs that proclaim He was already born, then we are not expecting it, it has happened. I try to keep the expectation. And I struggle with that…
But I wonder what your law is, and what it would take to give up your point of view and use Jesus’ point of view instead…
aSacredRebel 