Not One More Day

Imagine not being able to stand up straight. Your back is bent forward, and it will not unbend. Most of what you see all day is the floor and other people's feet.

Now imagine living like that for eighteen years. A baby born the year it started would be grown up by the time it ended.

That was one woman's life. Her story is in the Gospel of Luke, one of four books in the Bible that tell the life of Jesus.

It happened on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. God had told Israel, the Jewish nation, to stop working and rest on that day. Jesus was travelling toward Jerusalem, the capital city, teaching in towns along the way (Luke 13:22). That day he was teaching in a synagogue, a meeting house where Jewish people met each week to pray and hear God's word read aloud.

And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.

Luke 13:11

Luke says an evil spirit was behind her illness, without explaining more. She was bent, she could not fix it, and she came anyway.

1. Jesus called her before she asked

In many stories where Jesus heals someone, the person asks first. Here, nobody does.

When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your disability." And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.

Luke 13:12-13

Look at who does each thing. Jesus sees her, calls her, speaks, and touches her. She says nothing until she is standing straight, and then she praises God. He went first.

One of the Psalms, the Bible's book of songs and prayers, had already said God is like this:

The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.

Psalm 145:14

"The LORD" in capitals is how many Bibles print God's own name. The song means people pressed low by any trouble, like grief or fear. In Luke 13 that promise happens to a real body, and Jesus lifts her with his own hands.

Paul, an early Christian leader, told believers in Rome that God went first in the biggest way of all.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Sinners are people who have done wrong against God. Christ is a title meaning the Anointed One, the King God promised to send. Jesus did not wait for us to become good before he died in our place. If you are waiting to fix your life before coming to him, you have the order backwards.

2. The leader had a verse on his side

Not everyone was glad.

But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, "There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day."

Luke 13:14

The ruler of the synagogue was the man in charge of its meetings. Indignant means angry because something seems wrong. He does not speak to Jesus or to the woman. He scolds the crowd, even though she never asked for anything.

It is easy to treat him as a villain, but he is nearly quoting the Ten Commandments, the ten main laws God gave Israel through their leader Moses.

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work.

Exodus 20:9-10

This is the honest difficulty. God really did command a day without work. The leader was right that the day mattered, and wrong about what it was for.

Years later, Moses repeated the commandments to the next generation and gave a reason that is easy to miss.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there... Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Deuteronomy 5:15

Israel had been slaves in Egypt, and slaves never get a day off. God set them free, then gave them one day every week to remember it. The Sabbath was a weekly reminder: you are not slaves anymore.

So on the day that celebrated freedom, Jesus freed a woman who had been trapped for eighteen years. The leader thought healing broke the Sabbath. Jesus was doing exactly what the Sabbath was for.

3. She was worth more than a thirsty donkey

Then the Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?"

Luke 13:15-16

A hypocrite is someone who pretends. The Greek word, hypokritēs, was used for a stage actor. They acted as if they were guarding God's day, but they were kinder to their animals than to her.

A manger is an animal's feeding box. Each of them untied their animals on the Sabbath and led them to water, and nobody called that breaking God's law. It took more effort than what Jesus did. He only spoke and touched.

If you untie an animal on this day, Jesus says, surely this woman should be untied. Luke uses the same Greek word for both, luō. It means to untie or loosen, the way you undo a knot.

Satan is the Bible's name for God's enemy, an evil spirit who harms people. The Bible does not blame every sickness on him. But here Jesus wants the room to see her as tied up, and needing to be let loose.

Abraham was the father of the Jewish people, the man God made great promises to long before. Calling her "a daughter of Abraham" says she belongs to God's family. The leader never mentions her. Jesus calls her family.

In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus makes a similar argument in another synagogue, beside a man with a shrivelled hand.

Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

Matthew 12:11-12

Lawful means allowed by God's law. Any farmer would rescue his sheep, so Jesus asks them to measure: a person is worth far more than a sheep. This was not a one-time argument. It is how Jesus thinks.

The phrase "daughter of Abraham" reaches further than one woman. Paul wrote to churches in Galatia, in what is now Turkey, where many believers were not Jewish. Some people told them they did not fully belong.

And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

Galatians 3:29

Offspring means children. Heirs receive what a family passes down. So if you belong to Jesus, you are in Abraham's family too, and what Jesus said about her is true of you. You are family, and your freedom matters to him.

4. The day of rest was made for setting people free

As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.

Luke 13:17

Adversaries are opponents. Put to shame means they had no answer. The ordinary people understood first: this was what God's day was for.

Earlier, in his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus stood up in the synagogue on a Sabbath and read from Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet, someone God spoke through, centuries before Jesus.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me... to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

Isaiah 61:1

Anointed means chosen and sent for a job. In Israel, oil was poured on a person's head to mark them out for it. That is where the title Christ comes from. To proclaim liberty to the captives is to announce that prisoners are free to go.

Jesus read this, sat down, and said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21). In other words: this is about me. In Luke 13 we watch him do it.

But here is the hard part. Jesus did not heal every bent back in Israel that day. Many people who love him are still sick or hurting. Writing to believers in the Greek city of Corinth, Paul described a painful problem he called a "thorn". He never says what it was.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this... But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

2 Corinthians 12:8-9

Grace is a gift you did not earn, and sufficient means enough. Paul asked three times, and the answer was no. Instead, the Lord promised to be enough, and to show his strength through Paul's weakness.

So freedom does not always come the way it came in that synagogue. Some people are set free now. Others wait until Jesus returns, when the Bible's last book promises there will be no more pain (Revelation 21:4). This story shows what Jesus wants: he does not treat your trouble as something that can wait forever.

What to do this week

Notice the person nobody is looking at. Find one person at school, work, or home who often gets left out, and talk to them before they have to ask.

Do not say "come back later" when today is possible. When a friend or family member needs help and your first answer is "not now", check whether it really has to wait.

Tell Jesus plainly what weighs you down. You do not need perfect words. Name the one worry, fear, or habit that weighs on you most, and tell him. He called her over before she said anything.

She had been bent over for eighteen years. Jesus would not make her wait one more day.