One Sabbath as Jesus preached, he saw a sermon illustration, right there in the synagogue! What if, in the middle of the assembly of the righteous men, a cursed, deformed person appeared? What if that person were a woman?
How did she get there? We learn not to see the bent-over people in our midst!
Jesus called her to stand up as best she could. She walked up the aisle to where he sat in the teacher’s chair.
In front of the congregation, Jesus touched someone contaminated by infirmity. He touched a woman.
What did she say when she stood up straight and praised God? Did she look up, with a great big grin across her face? Did she sprint down the aisle, out into the world, to tell everyone what God had done for her? Let’s imagine all of that.
The synagogue president (the clerk of session) was angry. Jesus broke the Sabbath. Her condition wasn’t life-threatening. Jesus could have waited until after dark, or the next morning. After 18 years, what was one more day?
She never asked to be healed. She didn’t come right up to Jesus. He found her. In his presence, with the word of God hanging in the air, release from bondage was bound to happen! Healing flowed like the water a faithful man would provide for his stock before he went to morning service.
Luke describes what happened to the woman with words that depict the ox and the goat, led out of their stalls to life-giving water. Sabbath is about restoring life and meeting real needs. Sabbath is about healing and liberation.
What if, in the middle of a sermon, somebody turns up, somebody whose life is all about what the preacher is talking about? What if somebody who’s bent double by the very burdens scripture and sermon say can be taken away, suddenly appears?
What if, when the minister prays for the healing of all the sick, a woman who sits in the shadows suddenly discovers she has been healed?
What if, when the congregation prays, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done …” the kingdom actually comes?
Any of these events would lead us into new territory. Really, old, well-mapped territory. Jesus didn’t do much that was new, but everything was made new because he was there.
Every call to worship is an invitation to enter the fullness of the Sabbath. In fact, every new day is a call to live the Sabbath. To live in grace. Every day.
To rest from all our efforts to save ourselves. To glorify God. To enjoy living the life God gives us. To accept the gifts God pours out on us. Release from bondage, the freedom of the children of God.
To stand up straight, and praise God. To proclaim liberty, and to get to work unbending all that is crooked. Lifting up those who are bent-over by burdens no one need bear.
When Nova Scotians hear this story, we think of our most famous bent-over woman, Maud Lewis. Maud was never healed in her body. Only death released her from her pain, her poverty, and her husband Everett’s cruelty.
When she took a paintbrush in her twisted hand, and opened her jars of brilliant, glossy paint, her spirit was free. It took such effort to look up, to see just a little of the world around her. When she looked down, and touched her brush to whatever she could find to paint on, she saw a world overflowing with delight. Delight in the simple things you and I miss, because we see so much.
We might wonder, “What if Maud had been healed, whole, and free?” We look at her pictures. Their bright beauty speaks Sabbath to us. Can we say she wasn’t whole? She wasn’t free?
What if we spoke Sabbath to all the bent-over people in our midst?
