In this week’s story, Jesus releases healing and praise in a woman who has been bent over, crippled, for eighteen years. Can we get an “Alleluia?” Not from the leader there – he is outraged that Jesus performed this “work” on the Sabbath, “saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.’” Jesus was a religious leader himself, steeped in Jewish law and traditions. Shouldn’t he have known better?
The whole gospel record of Jesus’ ministry and teaching could be summed up as: He knew better. Certainly, he claimed to know better what God asked of God’s people – that made him very unpopular with the religious establishment. And there was authority in the way he taught the “better way,” and power in his demonstrations of that “better way” that also made him wildly popular with the people.
The Jewish religious system of Jesus’ day had grown rigid, hierarchical, focused on performance of sacrifices and rituals and adherence to rules and regulations (that’s the natural tendency of religious systems…). Jesus constantly challenged the leaders to reclaim God’s love and compassion for the poor, the weak, the meek, and not stand arrogantly on their “righteousness.” He’s not averse to picking fights with these leaders who constantly scrutinized him, and many of these fights are about healing on the Sabbath.
A rigid interpretation of Sabbath laws suggests you do nothing, not even a good thing, on the Sabbath, if it can be construed as "work." But Jesus said that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” God’s laws were intended to bless us and make us blessings to the world, to be a yardstick by which we measure our growth in spiritual maturity, not to hit us with when we fail.
That synagogue leader thought he had God figured out, contained. Isn’t that so often our temptation? “You can be healed six days of the week, not seven.” But who is to contain the Holy Spirit? If the very nature of God is wholeness, healing is going to break out whenever and wherever God is … and in that synagogue that day, God was there, in Christ.
So it is today, in any and every place where the Spirit of God is present through the Body of Christ. That’s us, folks. Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and ears and voice of love in the world now. We have been given tremendous power through our access to God in the Spirit. So when we encounter someone who is afflicted in body, mind or spirit, we don’t have to think, “Oh, this isn’t the time or place for prayer,” or “I’m not the right person.” We can just go, “Oh yeah, I know the right person. And he’ll show up anytime I invoke his name. Come, Lord Jesus.” That is the ancient prayer of the people of the better way, “Maranatha.” Come, Lord Jesus.
Today, keep inviting God to release healing love and power in you, where you’re hurting.
And keep praising.
And add a third thing: ask God to show you today someone for whom you are to pray, for whom you are to invite Jesus to release healing graces. It might be a person close to you, or someone you see on the news. You don’t have to offer to pray with them, though that’s always great. You can simply say, “Come Lord Jesus – here’s someone who needs you. Be here. Release your power and love in him, in her.”
God is with us seven days a week, 24 hours a day, at all times and in all places.
God cannot be contained or constrained.
The more we pray, the more God’s life breaks out and restores the world. Every day.
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