NO WRONG TIME FOR JESUS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then He put His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

The Lord answered Him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

When He said this, all His opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things He was doing.

Luke 13:10-17

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Is there any wrong time for Jesus to do anything He wants to do?

Further, who has the right to dictate to Him what He does and when He does it?

It seems so foolishly audacious for anyone to even consider doing such a thing, let alone actually doing it, but as we see in today’s scripture passage and our continuing study of Luke 13, the Jewish religious leaders didn’t seem to mind confronting Jesus every chance they had. And they did so never truly recognizing who they were opposing, mostly because they never wanted to open their eyes up to realize He was the One the prophets of old had spoken of, the One their ancestors had waited for.

Blind to the fact the Messiah was in their midst, the Jewish religious authorities did allow Jesus to teach in their synagogues, even if their attention was more fixated on reasons to condemn Him than it was to possibly learn something from His teachings. As we turn to our verses for today, we find Jesus providing instruction to His audience on the Sabbath, the esteemed day of worship that God Himself had commanded to be set apart. Look again at these words here:

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then He put His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

The Lord answered Him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

When He said this, all His opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things He was doing.  Luke 13:10-17

As stated earlier, the teaching Jesus was providing happened to be on the beloved, respected Sabbath day, a day of rest outside of worshiping and honoring God. Through Luke’s account, we are introduced to a woman who was in the synagogue audience, a woman who was in bad physical condition and had been so for quite some time, eighteen years to be exact. She was so crippled that she was bent over and couldn’t even straighten herself up. Yet, there she was among the attendees in worship and listening to what Jesus had to say.

Imagine if you were the woman. You had been lame for so long that it was just part of your life now. You had little hope of ever getting better and, in fact, were probably going to get worse. Your quality of life was far from the best. Far from it.

And yet, unlike we have seen in other scenes where Jesus was in the presence of people providing teaching, here the woman didn’t approach Jesus and ask for Him to heal her. Neither did anyone else come up to Him and intercede on behalf of the woman. That’s not how it happened at all.

For the scriptures tell us that it was Jesus who saw the woman and called her forward, another indicator of His deep compassion for the people He had come to save.

Well, the woman came forward and Jesus game the following command before placing His hands on her:

“Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.”

And with that, the former invalid immediately straightened up and began praising God. It was a miracle of the highest order and one that should have lifted the spirits of everyone present to a place where they were praising God and rejoicing along with the woman.

But that’s not the way it happened. As we see, not everyone was sharing in the ecstasy of the moment, namely the synagogue leader who had to step in and try to crush the celebration, indignantly saying to the people:

“There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

It was an unbelievably insensitive and inhumane statement, ridiculous at best. Jesus certainly felt that way as He provided a speedy rebuttal:

“You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

What was Jesus accusing the Jewish religious leaders of?

First, hypocrisy, a typical accusation levied against the Jewish religious authorities who felt the rules, which included God’s commandments, applied to everyone else except them. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers and experts of the law were great at telling others what to do and how to live but they only obeyed the same direction when it suited them.

Point in case was this matter of doing things on the Sabbath. The synagogue leader was admonishing the people for having the gall to get healed on the Sabbath but they didn’t see anything wrong with marching their animals to a place where they could get water to drink.

This leads to the second admonition levied against the Jewish religious leaders for through their words and actions, they were showing they placed more value on animals than on human beings. It was fine for them to lead their donkeys and oxen to the watering hole to drink but not permissible for a woman who had suffered severe disability for 18 long years to be healed.

I mean, how preposterous is that, especially for those claiming to me men of God?

Well, the people loved what they heard Jesus say just as much as they loved seeing the woman’s health and quality of life restored.

As for His opponents, well, they were less than pleased, humiliated by Jesus’ public rebuke. But it was something they asked for, something they deserved as anyone would who tried to order Jesus, God’s one and only Son, to do something on human terms.

In the end translation, there is no wrong time for Jesus to do anything. He works on His timetable and the results are always perfect and, as those who were delighted in the synagogue realized, wonderful.

All His works are.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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