For eighteen years, she was bent over forward. I would like to invite you to lean forward in your chair if you are able and remain there for 18 seconds. (bend over as preacher and count to 18). You can sit up, if you want to. Perhaps the back needs to be stretched. For this woman, she was in this posture of being bent over for eighteen years. She had a “posture of forced humility”.[1] Everyone knew her in town. Day after day she walked like that. Week after week, she most likely attended the synagogue for worship, walking in again and again, week after week in the same posture over and over again. No one knows what happened, what made her snap and perhaps fracture a vertebrae in her back; what arthritic pain she had been carrying; what burden she’d been carrying, what abusive form of evil that had bound her.
Here she is at synagogue, minding her own business, listening to the visiting rabbi preach. We don’t even know what Jesus preached about that day, like many a sermon that is not memorable. Yet she walked there weekly, carrying the burden of the human condition of sin that knows no cure! Yet when Jesus is done preaching, he sees her and Jesus calls her over – makes her walk to him.
Jesus was bent on healing and would bend over backward to restore this woman so that she could walk with God in a new way. In Genesis 3:8-9, it states, “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD”. Why did they hide? Fear! They were afraid, afraid perhaps of punishment. The sound of God was present and God was searching out for them, but they were hiding, weighed down by the burden of the knowledge of good and evil, a burden that humanity would carry for a long time, manifested in the laws requirements. The law required that men and women sit on different sides of the synagogue.
Jesus was seeking out this woman, who ironically stands out in the crowd. She never asked for this healing; she didn’t come to worship looking for the power of positive thinking. She just showed up every week. Jesus asked her forward and she crossed over that gender line and allowed Jesus to heal her with his words, “be loosed” and with his hands as he touched her and stood up straight. She praised God and people were amazed.
The religious leader was upset. Religious leader was more concerned about the law and the legalistic interpretation of Sabbath rest; and it would be easy to preach about the value of the Sabbath; but Jesus calls them hypocrites. A hypocrite was a pretender. In the Greek world it related to wearing different masks, like in the theatre; as an actor was pretending to be a different character. This religious synagogue leader was pretending to be concerned for this relationship between God and humanity but more interested in maintaining the laws and their roles. Jesus reminds them of their compassion for animals, whom they didn’t want to suffer on a hot day but allowing the people to give a drink to their animals. Yet they didn’t care for this woman, a daughter of Abraham. The religious leaders were bent on being right than right living; bent on absolutes instead of absolution; bent on the “truth” instead of trust; and bent on being correct instead of connected and concerned. But Jesus was bent on healing and restoring this woman to walk with God in a new way.
I want you to think about what you’ve been bent on in your life. Think about 1989, August, which was eighteen years ago. What was going on in your life? What burden were you carrying? What was going on in your life? I had just resigned from my role as Youth Director in
The Bible reminds us that we are to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). I’ve known some of you for half of those 18 years, as it’s been nine years ago that I’ve been your Pastor! You’ve carried burdens, but you have returned for worship and we continue to be bent on sharing that grace that helps us to walk straight into this day where, like that woman, we too can GLORIFY GOD!!! Jesus is here bent on healing so that we may walk with this journey in a new way.
Let us pray, Gracious God, heal us as we lift those burdens up to you and bear them on the cross. Bring healing even when there isn’t a cure, in Jesus name. Amen!
[1] C.H. Spurgeon, http://home.twcny.rr.com/lyndale/Pentecost%2013C.htm
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