Luke 13:10-17  (NLT)

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath
10 One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!

14 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”

15 But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? 16 This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”

17 This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did.

Every family has a rule follower. The person who insists on reading every instruction before playing a board game. The one who calls you out for sneaking candy into the movie theater. 

The synagogue leader in Luke 13 was a classic rule follower. You can feel his righteous indignation when he basically tells Jesus, “There are six days for healing, and the Sabbath isn’t one of them.” 

Rules can be helpful and good, and rule followers can keep us out of all kinds of trouble. The problem comes when we get so focused on doing things right that we lose sight of the right thing to do. 

That’s what happened to the synagogue leader. His zeal for keeping man-made rules around the Sabbath caused him to neglect the most important rule of all. Love God and love others (Matthew 22:36-40). 

God designated the Sabbath as a day of rest (Exodus 20:10-11). But for centuries, religious leaders had added to God’s law, even creating a rule that you cannot heal on the Sabbath because, for a doctor, healing is work. 

Two thousand years later, we read this story, and that seems silly. Why would anyone stop someone from being healed? But we can be just as guilty of hiding behind the letter of the law instead of submitting to the fullness of God’s law. 

How often do we walk past someone in need because we gave to the Salvation Army’s bell ringers last week? Or, when’s the last time you felt the urge to do something generous but stopped for fear of what others might think? 

Loving others is messy work. And the people most in need of it are often those we’d rather avoid. Like a woman who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. 

The lesson Jesus teaches the synagogue leader is one we all need to hear. Caring for others is always the right thing to do, even if it raises a few eyebrows.  

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