Love Bent Double
A while back, a friend e-mailed me a story about a seven-year-old boy whose mother asked him what he learned in Sunday school. He said, “Well, Mom, today we learned about the time when Moses was leading the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and across the Red Sea. They got there at the Red Sea,” he says, “and Moses realized the Israelites couldn’t make their way over. So he asked the Israeli Marine Corp if they would erect a pontoon bridge over the Red Sea, and all the people of Israel walked over that pontoon bridge. But when the Egyptians got there, they had their tanks and their guns and all their heavy artillery, and they got stuck in the mud. So Moses radioed the Israeli Air Force to come over, and they bombed them and wiped out all the Egyptians.”
Well, the mother was shocked. She said, “Is that really what they taught you in Sunday school this morning?”
The boy said, “Well, not exactly. But if I told you what our teacher told us, you’d never believe it.”
Philosophers, historians and theologians have long debated the possibility and probability of miracles—like the parting of the Red Sea. But according to a study conducted by the University of Princeton, 82% of Americans still believe that miracles are performed by the power of God, even today.#
Despite the doubts of skeptics, Jesus actually performed countless miracles during his lifetime. The actual number of miracles he performed is innumerable because the Bible often speaks in general terms. For example, the Bible says, “Jesus performed many other miracles that his disciples saw. Those miracles are not written in this book” (John 20:30 GWT). There are, in fact, only about thirty-five specific miracles of Jesus described in the Bible. Of those thirty-five, most were miracles of healing.
In Luke 13, we read about one of the most beautiful miracles that Jesus ever performed. It happened on a Sabbath day (Saturday) when Jesus was teaching in a local synagogue. Here’s the what the Bible says:
Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day.
A woman was there who, for eighteen years, had an evil spirit in her that made her crippled. Her back was always bent; she could not stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are free from your sickness.” Jesus put his hands on her, and immediately she was able to stand up straight and began praising God.
The synagogue leader was angry because Jesus healed on the Sabbath day. He said to the people, “There are six days when one has to work. So come to be healed on one of those days, and not on the Sabbath day.”
The Lord answered, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you untie your work animals and lead them to drink water every day—even on the Sabbath day? This woman that I healed, a daughter of Abraham, has been held by Satan for eighteen years. Surely it is not wrong for her to be freed from her sickness on a Sabbath day!” When Jesus said this, all of those who were criticizing him were ashamed, but the entire crowd rejoiced at all the wonderful things Jesus was doing. (Luke 13:10-17)
One of the reasons that this is such a wonderful story is that God allows us to see this miracle from several different perspectives. We see it from the vantage point of the one it was done for, the One who did it, and those who witnessed it. The first of those viewpoints is that of the...
1. Crippled Woman:
Luke says that this woman “had an evil spirit in her that made her crippled,” and “her back was always bent” so much that “she could not stand up straight.” The New American Standard Bible says she was “bent double.” Another translation says she was “so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up” (MSG).
It was sometimes the case, during New Testament times, that a demon or evil spirit would inflict some sort of medical condition, such as epilepsy or depression, and that was the case with this poor woman. Whatever the cause, it’s clear that this woman suffered for eighteen years from a condition very similar to a somewhat rare ailment known today as Marie Strumpell disease.
Marie Strumpell disease, also known as ankylosing spondylitis, is a type of arthritis that causes chronic inflammation of the spine and the joints. The inflammation in these areas causes pain and stiffness in and around the spine. Over time, chronic spinal inflammation can lead to a complete cementing together of the vertebrae, a process called anylosis, which results in a curved spine, like a hunched back, as well as the complete loss of spinal mobility. If this was Marie Strumpell disease, or even an extreme form of osteoporosis, this woman would have been very uncomfortable for the past eighteen year, to say the least.
My grandmother suffers from a very similar condition. You wouldn’t know it though, unless you looked at her. Her spine is noticeably bowed from osteoporosis so much that she’s also “bent double,” but she’s got the most pleasant disposition of anyone you’ll ever meet. Anytime I go to the farm for visit, she goes out her way to make me feel at home. I can’t stay more than five minutes without her offering to make me something to eat or get me something to drink. Even when she was battling cancer and enduring radiation treatments, she never lost her cheerfulness—at least not that I ever saw.
I imagine this woman was a lot like my grandma. The Bible says that they were “in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day”—the first-century equivalent of being in church on Sunday morning. I wonder, if I had been crippled for eighteen years, if I would be faithful to worship God week after week in the synagogue?
Certainly this woman must have prayed and asked God for deliverance, but still she was crippled. God’s apparent indifference, however, didn’t cause her to become bitter or resentful. There she was in the synagogue—worshipping and praising the God she loved. A lesser person might have become angry or disillusioned with God. Many people do. Suffering often causes people to withdrawn from God or perhaps even blame him for their pain. But this woman loved God despite her disability and she was loyal to him.
This crippled woman also teaches us the value of church attendance. Think about what she would have missed if she wasn’t there that day. Her presence was probably an encouragement to so many people and I’m sure there were many there who loved on her and encouraged her. In fact, that’s the real purpose of meeting together. The Bible says, “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near” (Hebrew 10:24-25 NLT). See, it’s not that Sunday or the Sabbath is any more holy or special than the other six days in the week, but that going to church gives us the chance to surround ourselves with other people who love God, to express that love as a group, and to encourage one another to continue expressing our love for God and for people all throughout the week! That’s what church is all about.
This woman’s spirit must have shined like a ray of sunlight on a cloudy day, and when she was healed, it just gave her all the more reason to love God and sing his praises. But, the crippled woman’s perceptive on this miracle is just one of many. Next, we see this wonder through the eyes of…
2. Christ:
It’s important to notice that the Bible says, “Jesus saw her,” and, “he called her over.” She didn’t go to him; rather, the sight of her kindled Jesus’ concern. This is just one of the myriad examples of the love and sympathy that Jesus felt for people. Jesus is understanding toward our needs—he always has been. We live in a world of hurting people. Americans buy over 3,000,000,000 Tylenol® each year. Jesus knows every headache. Emergency Room visits reached an all-time high last year of 114,000,00. Jesus knows every broken bone and every affliction. He chose to demonstrate God’s power by curing diseases, casting out demons, and healing hurts, instead of some pointless feat like moving a mountain or parting the ocean. Jesus is always on the lookout for hurting people.
Seven centuries before Jesus was born, the Bible prophesied, “the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the suffering and afflicted. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted, to announce liberty to captives, and to open the eyes of the blind. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of God’s favor to them has come...” (Isaiah 61:1 TLB).
In this one act of compassion alone Jesus would have fulfilled this prophecy. But he didn’t stop there. Everywhere he went he took time to heal and to help. The word compassion itself is use at least thirteen times throughout Jesus’ four biographies (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and every single time it was either spoken by Jesus or it was used to describe Jesus!
In 1988, speed skater Dan Jansen was in the spotlight at the Winter Olympics. Just a few hours before his big race he was told that his sister had died. He had been battling leukemia for the past year. He determined to continue with his race in honor of his sister, but the weight of his grief was too much for him. He ended up falling in the first turn of the race and never really recovered. Sports Illustrated printed an article about him, including a letter that he received shortly after returning home. The letter was from Mark Arrowood, a thirty-year-old disabled man from Pennsylvania. He wrote:
Dear Dan, I watched you on TV. I’m sorry that you fell 2 times. I am in Special Olympics. I won a gold medal at Pennsylvania State Summer Olympics right after my Dad died seven years ago... Before we start the games we have a saying that goes like this: “Let me win, but if I can’t win, let me be brave in the attempt”... I want to share one of my gold metals with you because I don’t like to see you not get one. Try again in four more years.#
Within the envelop, Dan Jansen discovered a gold metal that Mark had won in the Special Olympics. When Jesus, like Mark Arrowood, saw a person stumble, he was moved with sympathy and motivated to help. As we strive to be more like him, we’ll realize that our own needs and possessions are often disposable in reaching others with the love of God. Remember, we are called to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 NKJV). Unfortunately, whenever someone does something great there will always be...
3. Critics:
Which is the third point-of-view from which we see this miracle. The Bible says, “The synagogue leader was angry because Jesus healed on the Sabbath day. He said to the people, ‘There are six days when one has to work. So come to be healed on one of those days, and not on the Sabbath day’” (vs. 14).
This seems like such a strange criticism. Why would someone get so angry over something as kindhearted and considerate as what Jesus did for this crippled woman? Not only that, but if people did come back on some other day—who was going to heal them? Jesus was a busy man, traveling from one town to another. Whose to say that he would even be there another day. This synagogue leader certainly didn’t have the ability to perform miracles of healing the way Jesus did. But none of that seemed to matter to him. He was blinded by his anger—furious because Jesus had apparently broken the rules.
Long ago, when God gave the Ten Commandments, he said, “Remember to keep the Sabbath holy. Work and get everything done during six days each week, but the seventh day is a day of rest to honor the Lord your God. On that day no one may do any work… The reason is that in six days the Lord made everything—the sky, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. On the seventh day he rested. So the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).
God intended the Sabbath to be a day of rest and worship. But the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had turned this blessing into a burden. Because of their legalistic approach to God’s commands, the religious leaders had developed an elaborate written code of all the actions that were prohibited on the Sabbath, including any type of work. They considered healing to be part of a doctor’s line of work, and practicing one’s vocation on the Sabbath was forbidden. Therefore, according to their religious regulations, Jesus was breaking the law.
Today when a law no longer serves a practical purpose it just sort of fades into obscurity, but there are a lot of odd laws still on the books. For example, young girls are never allowed to walk a tightrope in Wheeler, Mississippi, unless it’s in a church. In Honey Creek, Iowa, no one is permitted to carry a slingshot to church except a policeman. No citizen in Leecreek, Arkansas, is allowed to attend church in any red-colored clothing. And in Blackwater, Kentucky, tickling a woman under her chin with a feather duster while she’s in church service carries a penalty of $10.00 and one day in jail.#
Jesus apparently considered the convoluted codes of the religious leaders concerning the Sabbath to be in the same category as these other odd laws. Earlier Jesus explained, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27 ESV). The point is—all of God’s commands are important, but they were designed for our benefit and when we legalistically insist on the letter of the law, overlooking the needs of real people, God is not pleased. In fact, the Bible records seven times that Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, challenging these religious leaders to look beneath their rules and regulations to the true purpose of the God’s laws—to glorify God by helping those in need. That brings us to the final standpoint from which this miracle is witnessed—the view from the...
4. Crowd:
The Bible says that, “When Jesus said this, all of those who were criticizing him were ashamed, but the entire crowd rejoiced at all the wonderful things Jesus was doing” (vs. 17). When Jesus made his point, the people were overjoyed. They were tired of all the dress codes, hair codes, behavior codes, and all the other codes that give some churches a pharisaic feel. No doubt they treasured a Rabbi who stood up for them against the rigorous rules that the religious leaders imposed upon them in every area of life.
Moreover, they rejoiced with this woman who was finally released from her burden. Truth be told, this woman represents each one of us apart from Christ. She was so crippled and twisted from her arthritis that she couldn’t even raise her head to see the face of Jesus. But once he touched her, she was freed from her misery and could immediately raise up and see the face of her Savoir.
As she was afflicted physically, we are all afflicted spiritually. Sin has so twisted and crippled each one of us that we cannot even lift our faces to God. But he has called each of us over to him to be healed and when we are touched by Christ, we’re released from the cold grip of sin—free to look upon the face our Savoir. Anytime a person gives their heart to Jesus is a time to celebrate—to cheer.
Through this one miracle, we see the beauty of unwavering love and loyalty to God demonstrated by this woman, we see the wonder of Jesus’ love and sympathy toward people in need, we see the futility of legalism and the joy of redemption. As we seek to grow in our capacity to love God and love people, let’s be as committed to Christ as this crippled woman was, let’s never allow the letter of the law to get in the way of the spirit of the law, let’s reach out to people in need with the love of God, and let’s celebrate all the wonderful things that Jesus is doing!
