The Sabbath day, believe it or not, was getting “ridiculous.”
The arguments back and forth about what “you could do” and what “you could not do”…were sheer and utter non-sense.
Get this:
Rabbis allowed animals to be tied up to prevent them from “straying off,” but they restricted “the kinds of knots” that could be used, as some might require “too much work to tie.”
They also found “creative ways” to water their animals without breaking “the limits of Sabbath travel” which was “a Sabbaths’ Day Journey” to the Synagogue and back again. No more steps were possible. No matter what!
You could walk that far from your “home” without “IT” being considered “work.”
So to get around that, they would build “a crude structure” around a public well and pronounce it a “private residence.”
Since the well was now a “home,” animals could be taken there for watering, provided [and I’m quoting now], “the greater part of a cow shall be within [the enclosure] when it drinks.”
“This knot,” not “that knot.”
“This many steps,” but not “that many steps.”
From your “house” even IF it were a temporary “made up” shelter…
Animal “half in” and “half out” otherwise, you have broken the law!
Yep, “that bizarre!”
And Jesus was constantly just amazed at the yoke that was being thrust on people’s shoulders.
This was “religious legalism” at its worst!
It is a good thing they did not have “Fitness Trackers” in Jesus’ time, just saying!
So this healing…this miracle…was a definite NO – NO!
So what we have in our Gospel Text for today is “a first hand – witnessed account” of what happened that day in the Synagogue.
Someone WAS watching…and it obviously left its IMPACT.
It was a day I will never forget. Our village had gathered at the local Synagogue to hear the word and receive teaching, to pray together, and to worship Yahweh, the one true God. “On this day” there was “an unusual excitement” in the crowd because we had “a guest rabbi,” the traveling one everyone was talking about. Jesus was his name. Everybody was talking about him. Rumors were flying about “healings and miracles” he had done elsewhere. When he taught, he didn’t teach like the rest of the rabbis, but he taught as one speaking for God.
Crowds followed him everywhere, so it was no surprise TO ME to find “our little Synagogue” packed on this particular Sabbath.
Jesus had just begun his teaching, “drawing us” into his words – when all of a sudden he focused in on “one of the women present.” I remember her well, because everywhere she walked, she was always “hunched over.” Her spine was “so stiff” that she could not ever stand up straight.
As Jesus noticed her, the whole crowd became silent. What was going to happen? Was he UPSET with her? Maybe he didn’t want one “with DEFORMITIES in his presence?” Then he motioned her forward, and she MEEKLY came. Jesus just looked at her with eyes of “love and compassion,” and he said, “Woman, you are SET FREE from your infirmity.” Then he reached out and put BOTH HANDS on her “slumped shoulders,” and immediately she straightened RIGHT UP and began to cry out praises to Yahweh! After a moment of shock, everyone else did, too. It was “the most amazing thing” I had ever seen in my life!
But then, there was trouble brewing on the horizon. He had done the unthinkable, the unimaginable. He healed on the Sabbath Day. He broke the law of Moses, the third commandment. Uh-oh! You could have heard a pin drop!
Jesus did not “back down” when accused! He stood his ground. It was ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS – where you could just “see the truth” cut “like a knife.” Our Synagogue leader, along with the Pharisees there, were silenced because they knew Jesus’ argument was IMPECCABLE.
Everyone knew that “PEOPLE MATTER to God.” And here, our leaders were putting their “petty little regulations” AHEAD of people’s lives.
I tell you, I will never forget “that day” or the “spring-in-the-step” of that little-old-lady as she left our Synagogue.
It was “Amazing!” Simply amazing…
Amen!