“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:12 ESV
How many times have we read the passage from Luke 13:10-17 and not seen the spiritual battle that was happening or seen the word spirit being used, and tried to explain away the Jesus’ reference to Satan? This is a nice story about Jesus healing a poor woman. In some people’s eyes this is comparable to us helping some one cross the road. Unfortunately Jesus’ words and actions are so much more than just a physical healing.
This is a spiritual battle that the religious leaders did not want to happen on the Sabbath. There are many problems with this but the glaring one is that they didn’t recognize the problem for eighteen years worth of work days prior to this day. They did not want to wage a spiritual battle to free this woman who some may have seen as a no body, yet Jesus saw her as a daughter of Abraham. The spiritual battle that this woman had faced left her physically bent over but this was not the only spiritual battle that Jesus was confronting, the Synagogue Leader was in a spiritual battle also, one of blindness and his heart was bent out of shape so much so that he was not seeing the daughter of Abraham that was in front of him, and possibly not seeing many other people.
How many of us missed the spiritual battle in scripture because we struggle to believe it in our own lives, or don’t want to believe that it is real. Are we so comfortable with Jesus as a moral teacher that we miss Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, redeeming us from our spiritual failings in our physical sins. Is it so hard for us to recognize the multiple levels of what it means for Jesus to be Lord and Saviour? Think about it this way Jesus doesn’t just save us from our sins and wants our obedience, but He has laid down His life to protect us. Lordship is not just about sitting and giving orders, it is about helping people to have freedom and security in the lives around us. In our society that is struggling with our history we are losing sight of all that Jesus is and some are settling for what is comfortable and easy. Jesus didn’t and doesn’t. Jesus saw the spiritual battle that was being wage in people’s lives, He sees it in our own lives. Thankfully He isn’t about to give up on us. Yes we are in a spiritual battle even today, but the good news of the scriptures is that Jesus has won the war.