If you were there
Luke 13:10-17
Hans-Erik Nelson
    

Main Idea: Jesus has a message for each person in this story--and one final message that is for all of them.

Imagine yourself as a character in this story. Go ahead, use your imagination!

There are four distinct characters. One of them is Jesus. You can't choose to be Jesus--David Koresh and Jim Jones tried that and it didn't work out too well for them or their followers.

That leaves three.

The first character is the woman who had been stooped over for eighteen years. If you have had long troubles in your life, you may identify with her.

The second character is the leader of the synagogue. If you are annoyed that people get healed on the day of rest, or if you are a stickler for the rules, you cross every "T" and dot every "I", this may be the part you could play.

The last character is a person in the crowd who cheers and praises God when Jesus heals the woman and shames the leader of the synagogue. If you are a person who is excited when other people are blessed, if you like to praise God, or if you long for the truth to be spoken and are thankful when it is, then this could be you.

Everybody ready? Do you know which character you are in the story? Good, because Jesus has a message for every character in this story, and if you are identifying with one of these characters, there is a message in it for you.

The most provocative message is for the woman who gets healed. Jesus says, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." What's really amazing about this statement is that there's no record of the woman ever asking to be healed! In all sorts of other stories people ask to be healed, or their friends ask for them to be healed, or their parents ask, and so on. Or sometimes they make such a nuisance of themselves it's obvious that they need some help from Jesus, and then he helps them.

But not this woman. Jesus just heals her, without her asking for it.

Remember the story of the thief hanging on the cross next to Jesus? The one who realized that he himself deserved the cross, but that Jesus didn't? In a sense he recognized that Jesus really was who he said he was, and he was able to say it out loud. Well, Jesus told him, "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." It's a great story, and it's a reminder to us not to get too rigid about what a person has to do to be in paradise with Jesus. The thief on the cross wasn't baptized. He didn't go to Sunday School. He didn't feed the poor, or shelter the homeless, or give his testimony. But he had faith. And Jesus saved him because of his faith, and perhaps, he saved him also to show us something. He saved him to show that HE decides who gets saved, and that HE can save anyone he wants to, no matter what formula we've come up with.

Maybe something similar is going on with this woman who got healed. Jesus is saying, in effect, "I can heal whoever I want to, whatever day of the week I want to, and you don't even have to ask me to heal you first." And so we can talk all we want about how we need to come to Jesus for healing and renewal, but sometimes he just reaches into our lives without us asking and gives it to us anyway. I know he does this, because I've seen it in myself, and I've seen it in other people. It's a funny kind of grace, maybe even the best kind--the gift that we get without even asking for it.

So… If you feel like you identify closely with this woman, then the message to you from Jesus is this: "You are healed in your body. And I healed your body not because you asked, but because I can and I wanted to, and because I know that you needed it. I did it because I love you so much. And though I care about healing your body, I want you to know that I am only stopping here for a short time on my way to the cross, where I will heal your soul as well."

If you identified most closely with the leader of the synagogue, the one who got annoyed at Jesus for healing the woman on the day set aside by law for resting, then Jesus has a totally different message for you. Here is what he says: "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?"

Ouch! If you're like this leader, then Jesus just called you a hypocrite! When other people call you names you may be able to shake it off. But Jesus tells the truth all the time. Not only that, he knows all the truth all the time. In fact, he IS the truth, so what he says is all about reality. That "hypocrite" name really stings because it was spoken by none other than truth personified. Ouch!

But Jesus has more. He is using the system of laws that the leader of the synagogue just quoted, and quotes another law right back to him.

"So, the law says we aren't supposed to work on Saturdays, is that right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, doesn't the law also say that it's OK to give your animals water on Saturday so they don't die of thirst?"

"Yes, the law says that too."

"Well, animals are great, but we're talking about people here. So if we can give an animal water on Saturday, how much more should we be able to heal this woman, this child of Abraham, from her oppression?"

Now here's the kicker, the great thing sort of hidden in the text: Jesus tells this leader that the woman is a child of Abraham.

Saying that someone is a child of Abraham may sound a little trivial to us, but we need to be aware of how important what he said was.

I have an assignment for you the next time you read your Bible. Anytime you read, anywhere you see the name "Abraham," you should take a pen and underline it and write the word "promises" above it, or off in the margin. Because anywhere Abraham is referred to, the person speaking is making a reference not just to Abraham the person, but to the promises God made to the person Abraham.

If you like fancy literary terms, you could say that Abraham is the archetype of a person to whom God makes promises.

The people who were listening to Jesus, when he said "Abraham," immediately in their heads thought, "Oh yeah! Abraham is the one God made all the promises to." And it's true. Just read a few chapters in Genesis and you'll see that God made quite a few important promises to Abraham. He promised to give Abraham a new country. He promised to give Abraham a son, and that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. He promised that Abraham would be the father of his chosen people.

So when the crowd heard Jesus call this woman a DAUGHTER of Abraham, they immediately said to themselves, "Oh yeah. This woman is an inheritor with us of all the promises that God made to Abraham. The whole world will be blessed through her. She is one of the chosen people. And Jesus must think a lot of her to give her a name like that!"

Keeping that in mind, if you identified with the leader of the synagogue, here is what Jesus is saying to you: "I'm glad that you are so interested in the law. But don't get so caught up in the details of this law that you forget how to understand its spirit. The law was always here, to protect you and to serve you, and to show you that you needed me. But you've started using my law like a club to beat other people up, and that makes you as bad as the people you despise the most for breaking it. Be happy when someone else is freed from bondage, even if it upsets what you think you know about me."

"You started living next to Mount Sinai where I gave you the law, and you never made the trip with me here to Mount Zion, where I will keep the law for you by taking its punishment for you onto myself."

"And one more thing. You never really believed that women had much spiritual significance. But I'm here to tell you that you and she are equally children of Abraham--you are both children of the promises God makes. So start treating women better too!"

Lastly, if you identified with the people in the crowd, the ones who cheered when the woman was healed and when the leader got a tongue-lashing, then there's nothing in the text that Jesus says directly to you--it just says you are happy about the wonderful things that Jesus does. But you get mentioned in this passage, which should tell us at least that God thinks it's good when people rejoice over others who are freed from bondage, and that God thinks that it's good when people rejoice as truth is spoken to power. And it's good to look at what Jesus does and be amazed, and in awe, and even to fall in love with him for it! All Jesus could say to them is, "You think that was amazing? Just wait a few days, and I will go up the mountain for you to save the world, and after three days you'll really be praising."

My friends, brothers and sisters, I ask you: Who are you in this story today?

I know who I am most of the time, and I wish I was more one of the people cheering than the hypocrite. I wish I was the woman praising God for miraculous healing.

But the truth is this: if we look inside ourselves, there is a little bit of each one of this story's characters in us. We are all these people at various times and seasons of our lives, and so the messages to each of them are the messages for us.

Sometimes we are oppressed and afflicted with things that cripple us--whether emotional, or physical, or spiritual. Then sometimes we are like the woman who gets healed--whether we ask for it or not. And we praise God when it happens, and we see again so clearly that Jesus does it purely and simply because it delights him to give us good things. He cries when we hurt, and rejoices with us when we get a victory over what oppresses us. But more than anything else, we see that he loves us, and he and wants to claim us as his very own.

Sometimes, sadly, we are the hypocrite in the story--angry, bitter, isolated, and annoyed when good things happen to other people because it interferes with the small understanding we have of God.

Don’t be like this. It's dangerous.

Think of a type of person who you can't stand to be around because they don't seem holy enough, or they are suffering from a decision that they made, or a decision someone else made, or suffering for no apparent reason at all. Now think of Jesus telling you all the promises that you know are for you are also for that person--that he came to die for THEM, that he loves THEM, and wants THEM for his very own too.

And finally, sometimes, we are the people who simply cheer and praise God when we see that Jesus does something really amazing. And again, there's not much to say about that, except that when it comes, it's a great feeling to have, and it's where God wants us to be--proclaiming and praising what Jesus has done, and being happy for it.

So all these messages are for us because we need them at various times. But all of this brings us back to Jesus. He is the one speaking, and if you heard it, there was one message that was the same that he gave to each person. And it's the message for us now and every other moment of our lives regardless of who we are or what season we are in. He said, "I am about to go up this hill, and I'm about to die on this cross, to make this healing possible, and to show you the true spirit of this law, and to give you something to really praise God for."

"Whatever your reason for being in this time and place, whoever you are or will be, now and forever and always, I am going up there FOR YOU--because I love you, and I want you to be mine."

Amen.