Pentecost 13

Pentecost 13 (Luke 13: 10-17)
You are set free.

Jesus Christ is the liberator of humanity.

In this event the woman not only experiences personal and individual liberation, she represents the liberation God offers all people in Christ.

There are two basic aspects to liberation. There is that from which we are delivered. There is that to which we are set free.

The woman was physically crippled. She was so bent over that she could not stand straight. She could only look at the ground. Her ailment was physical. Her ailment was also spiritual.

As a physician, Luke understood the causes and cures of disease. He also understood that as a doctor he could cure a disease and still see the patient languish in illness. He knew there was an additional step in healing. That additional step is wholeness.

Luke tells us that the woman had a spirit that crippled her. From the text, it is clear this is not demon possession. Demons are not the source of this crippling condition. The text is clear that Jesus healed the woman; he did not perform an exorcism.

What then is the spirit that crippled the woman?
Modern physicians are beginning to discover what ancient physicians had observed for centuries. You can cure an illness and the patient can still remain sick. Illness is more than a physical event in the body. It touches our emotions, our thoughts, and our spirits.

The spirit afflicting the crippled woman was not a demon imposing itself on her from the outside. It was her own spirit. The Bible doesn’t directly address the cause. There is a hint as to the cause.

The hint is the day Jesus chose to heal the woman. It was the Sabbath Day. It was the day God set aside for people to immerse themselves into the Divine love and holiness by which, through which, and for which we were all created.

Somewhere in her personal history, the woman had made a choice that led to a series of choices. She had taken her eyes off God and become obsessed with the things of this world. Her physical ailment mirrored her spiritual malady.

In this respect, the woman is representative of the entire human species. All of us collectively have chosen to separate from God. Each of us chooses to look away from God in our own unique and personal choices.

More often than not, the choice to look away from God is subtle. It is not the so called great sins that lead away from God. It is the little sins. It is the choice to set priorities that place God second. If we place God second we place God last. Those little choices that place God second have a cumulative effect on our spirits. For some of us it leads to the more overt and dramatic sins. For some of us is leads to a spiritual stagnation. For all of us is leads to greater brokenness, isolation and alienation.

Human choice impresses the human spirit. Human choice proceeds from the inner depths of the soul. Our Heavenly Father designed our souls to be temples of the Holy Spirit so we could enjoy an eternal friendship with God the Son.

St. Augustine observed that there are only two fundamental loves for the soul to pursue. There is the love of self which leads to separation, isolation, sin and death. There is the love of God which leads to reunification, communitu, holiness and eternal life.

The Sabbath Day is the day God sets aside for people to immerse ourselves into the steadfast holy love of God. It is the guidance, the boundary and the invitation to choose the love of God as the love that forms our soul and characterizes our spirit. The preeminent means by which we do this is worship.

Through worship we participate in the holiness of God. The holiness of God is the wholeness of eternal love. The Pharisees missed this fundamental truth. They heard the outward and visible law of the Sabbath command but they missed the inward and spiritual grace.

Jesus clarifies the law for the Pharisees, his disciples, the woman and us as he comments: is this wqman not a daughter of Abraham?

The healing that leads to wholeness takes place in relationship. Jesus reminds us that God entered into a personal relationship with Abraham. God formed Abraham and his descendants into a chosen vessel of blessing. The meaning and purpose of the blessing is to bring the blessing to others.

The Pharisees were exclusive and judgmental. They missed the blessing of the Sabbath. They ignored the principle of holiness as wholeness. They sacrificed compassion for rigid definition and harsh judgment.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath because the Sabbath Day of rest is the day of holiness, wholeness and eternal love.
There are two important principles for us to consider. First: healing is more than curing. Healing of the body can only be completed through healing of the spirit.
The second principle is the principle of the Sabbath Day rest. God wants us to enjoy a personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. God sets aside one day in seven as a day of eternal love.

Every Sabbath Day is an invitation to immerse our selves, our souls and bodies into the reality of God’s blessing. When we resist the call to worship on the Sabbath Day we chose to re immerse our souls in the original “no” of original sin.
The resistance to the Sabbath Day of Rest is a “no” to God who invites us to meet him at the altar to receive the blessing. It is a “no” to other people to whom God wants us to carry the blessing. It is a “no” to our own souls which God formed to hold the blessing.

Jesus not only healed the woman of her disease, he restored her spirit to wholeness. He reminded her she was a child of God. He met her personally on the Sabbath Day of Divine Blessing. And, he reminded his students, his enemies, and us that the Sabbath Day is the eternal day God has set aside for us to meet him, receive his blessing, be transformed by his blessing and then carry that blessing into the world of time.
On the Sabbath Day, Jesus sets us free from the tyranny of time into the liberating blessing of eternal love. It is always our choice. As Jesus stood before the crippled woman so he stands before us.

Do you wish to be set free to enjoy the blessings God offers? Jesus has come into the world to bring the reality of liberation through the call to holiness, the call to wholeness, the call to eternal love.

For those who desire to receive the blessing Jesus speaks a new reality into our souls, our soirit, our lives: you are set free.