“[Just] then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.” Luke 13:11.
Recently, I was having a conversation (well, it was a txt exchange if that can count as a conversation) about how spiritually and emotionally exhausting this time of year can be for many. Not only is the summer coming to a close and the warm sunny weather is fading, but schedules this time of year begin to grow hectic. School is starting. The winter is coming. People are taking stock and wondering if there will be enough to get through until spring. And then there is the experience of loss and grief that accompany so many. While I cannot say if it is more than usual for this time of year, I can say that I am aware that our communities have gathered for many funerals. Now add to all of this, the weight and worry of all that we witness happening in our nation and the world–political conflict, anger, injustice, worry, fear, and war.
People are hurting, and it is enough to bend them over.
“When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.”
Jesus healed the bent over woman by setting her free from her ailment: He set her free. And that might just be what all of us need when we are bent over from life. We need to be set free from the weight of it all. Jesus offers us freedom from our burdens if we would just lay them at his feet. Let him set us free from our ailments, from all that keeps us bent down.
“[Immediately] she stood up straight and began praising God.”
But then as soon as the woman was healed, as soon as she was freed from her ailment, as soon as she was standing straight, others tried to bend her down again–the ‘ailment’ seeks to snatch her back into bent over captivity. Others, the leaders, were upset by her freedom, her healing, indignant because the rules were broken, Jesus had freed her and healed her at the wrong time–inappropriately. Why is it that systems, structures, and others seem to always want us bent out of shape? Want us to remain trapped by our ailments? Perhaps it is because they, too, are bent over and suffering. They, too, are in need of being set free from the ailments that affect them.
People are not at their best when life bends them low. People are not at their best in these seasons of grief, worry, fear, and chaos. Perhaps we all need healing–freedom from our ailments.
In this season, may we pray for the freedom and healing that Jesus offers to all who are bent low. And let us be gentle and understanding with others who are hurting. We may not be at our best, others may not be at their best, but Jesus’ love and healing touch has been given to us for freedom’s sake: freedom from our ailments, and freedom to stand straight despite the weight of the world. Let us share that freedom.
