“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.”

Luke 13:10-13

The woman’s story in our text is usually taken as another of Jesus’ healings, but is it more than that? Women have not been thought significant. Jesus consciously chose to heal her in a public place. He grants her redemption and wholeness, thereby offering the kingdom to all women who are demeaned, denied their proper status, and oppressed by society. Disabled at many levels, hers is the story of many women. She had been bound by Satan for 18 years (v 16) and her condition demanded compassion. Jesus healed her, Sabbath or not. Jesus doesn’t say that Satan singled out this woman to suffer disability. She was a victim of the world’s fallenness, in which evil forces have power to hurt people, to deceive, to deform, and to destroy. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God will deliver us from the evil one – and that is what God will do. At the end of time, God will destroy evil forever.

CLOSING PRAYER

The Lord of the Sabbath, you not only saw and healed a woman on the Sabbath, you touched her. Thank you for your healing touch that freed me and gave me hope and a future with you forever. We need your help daily to revive our spirits and renew our minds as we navigate our way through a fallen world.

(Edited from Encounter with God)

* This is the text of one brother whom I ministered in Madison WI before my retirement: "I’m in the hospital with irregular heartbeat. Please keep me in your prayers brother" (Yesterday 8:40pm). "Things cooling down a bit. Heart was jumping all over the place for a while" (Today 2:40am). I pray for Jesus' healing touch upon him.