Imagine this scene with me. Jesus is delivering a sermon in the synagogue about the kingdom of God (Luke 13) when his eyes fall on a disabled woman who’d been stooped over for eighteen years. Though she was completely unable to straighten herself, she had not neglected to worship her Creator in the temple with God’s people that day.
In compassion, Jesus called her to himself. “Woman, you are loosed from thine infirmity (Luke 13:12b, NKJV), “he said. When he laid hands on her, she straightened up and glorified God in her new, upright position.
The Greek word “apoluo” which is translated “loosed” is means to free fully, release, pardon, let go, set at liberty, or divorce, according to Strong’s Concordance. At the word and touch of Jesus, she was freed from a spirit of infirmity and no longer imprisoned by her own body.
As the healed woman glorified God for the miracle she’d experienced at the word, the synagogue leader, incensed with Jesus, rebuked him for healing on the Sabbath. “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day. (Luke 13:14b, NKJV). The nerve.
Jesus minced no words in his response. He called his adversaries – apparently more than just the synagogue leader – what they were: hypocrites – actors in masks, pretending to be something other than what they were.
Who among them, Jesus asked, would not untie their own farm animals from their stalls to lead them to a watering hole on the Sabbath? Wasn’t this woman – a daughter of Abraham – of far greater value than any of their oxen and donkeys? Would they not loose her on the Sabbath? (Luke 13: 15-16).
When Jesus named Satan as the author of her bondage, he pointed the finger at anyone who would keep her bound even another day as his accomplices.
Jesus shamed his enemies in the synagogue that day and threw down a gauntlet – choose a side. Align with me, the One who sets captives free, or with Satan, the one who imprisons people, even in their own bodies through a spirit of infirmity.
By healing this daughter of Abraham and setting her free from her prison, Jesus authenticated himself as Lord of and over the Sabbath. He also embodied the power of the otherworldly kingdom he represented. The crowd rejoiced, the only right response to seeing the Kingdom of God manifested on earth.
With every eye in the synagogue on him, he launched into a sermon on the kingdom of God.
He used analogies to describe this kingdom. First, he spoke of something minuscule that would, over time, become great – a mustard seed. The tiniest among seeds paradoxically becomes the largest among plants, many multiples of its original size. Although small and vulnerable at first, it eventually grows so large that the birds of the air lodge in it and take rest under its shade. This is the DNA of the kingdom of God. Tiny, inconsequential things grow into homes for other creatures in which they can take refuge and rest. (Luke 13: 18-19, Matthew 13:31-32).
In his sermon that day on the Kingdom of God, Jesus likens it to leaven (Matthew 13: 33). He describes how a woman puts a little leaven in a container of flour, which leavens the whole over time. So it is with the kingdom of God. Although it begins as something barely visible and seemingly inconsequential, it is chock-full of transformative power
Imagine watching Jesus do a shocking miracle in the synagogue that Sabbath. When he was through, some congregants were overjoyed; others, put to shame.
Imagine this Jesus boldly and confidently challenging man-made constructs about what keeping the Sabbath holy meant and the upside-down values of synagogue leaders who valued a farm animal more than a sister, a fellow image-bearer of God, trapped in her own body.
His adversaries’ reaction to his miraculous work didn’t shock Jesus – not at all. Knowing their hearts, he laid them bare.
That day, he straightened a woman’s body, and then straightened out his adversaries’ crooked theology.
Perhaps a crippled old woman didn’t matter much to the synagogue leaders, clearly not as much as their precious rules. But Jesus, the exact representation of God– the Great I am – and the one in whose image every woman was created, affirmed her value.
This Jesus is irresistible to me. He aligns himself with the weak and lowly, refuses to submit himself to perverse, superfluous rules, and denies leaders, drunk on their teaspoon of power, the chance to continue lording it over their underlings. His moral courage moves him to break the hold of oppressive spirits, speak truth to power, and set women free, even in the face of judgment and condemnation. I am completely in love with him.
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