Who is Jesus? Luke 13:10-17

Our text this evening comes from the Gospel according to Saint Luke, the 13th chapter verses 10 through 17. Who is Jesus? Let us pray.

Holy Father,

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Thank you for Christ, our rock and our redeemer. The lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

In the name of Jesus we pray, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God age after age,

Amen

The most important question that every single person must ask in this life is who is Jesus. The great writer C.S. Lewis put it this way, “Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord.” And every single person must face the bible and the written account of Jesus and make a decision on which one of these categories Jesus falls under. Is he a mad man who lead millions and billions of people astray. Was he a con artist who managed to lie to the world. Or is he the all mighty, creator of the universe, who put on flesh and came into his own creation. And the way we come to the answer is by looking at what Jesus did while on earth. What do his actions teach us about him? Now since we are in church worshipping Christ this evening, we do hold Jesus is the king of all creation. But we can look at the ministry and the miracles that Jesus performed to better understand who he is and what kind of king we serve.

In the gospel of Luke this evening we will look at a miracle Jesus performed and even better we can see the reason that Jesus tells us that he performed this miracle. We are going to look at the Lordship of Christ and how the Lord sees his people. Lordship and how as Lord he sees his people.

Lets begin by looking at Luke 13:10-13

Luke 13:10–13 ESV

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.

Here Jesus is on the sabbath, a Saturday and he is teaching. It was common practice for rabbis to come a guest preach at the synagogue. So Jesus is teaching and while he is teaching he looks out at the crowd and he sees a woman. A woman with a horrible disability, she is unable to stand straight up.

This woman is bent over at the waist, she is unable to look up, she has come to the synagogue to worship and in the great mercy of God, God looks and sees her and he heals her. Jesus looks and sees this woman and he calls to her and he lays his hands on her and she is healed. She is able to stand straight up again, and her response is to begin glorifying God. What an amazing story.

Here this woman she comes to the synagogue to worship and learn about the scriptures and she is blessed to come face to face with God himself and to be healed from this terrible, demonic affliction that has plagued her for almost 2 decades. And her response is appropriate, she begins praising God. You can imagine her joy and her gratitude that after 18 years she can stand up again. She can walk and look ahead of her, she can stand in her house, she can sit down, comfortably. This is a glorious act and so she responds with praise and thanksgiving. This woman realizes that Jesus is Lord. This is the appropriate response.

But it is not the response of everyone in the synagogue. The ruler of the synagogue does not see Jesus as Lord, instead he sees Jesus as a threat. Look at Luke 13:14

Luke 13:14 ESV

But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”

The ruler, the head of this particular synagogue is angry. He looks at the acts Jesus has done and rebukes the people. He tells them that healing is a work and that if they are seeking this work then they must do it on a day that is not the sabbath.

And notice that the man does not rebuke Jesus, he is too afraid of actually addressing Christ so instead he rebukes the people. Treating them as if they are coming to the synagogue to specifically seek out healing. But this isn’t what the passage says. We are not told that the woman came seeking Jesus or healing, she was just sitting there listening to his teaching. And Christ in his mercy looks down and sees her and does a miraculous act.

Can anyone have missed the point more than this man? He tries to tell them that them coming to hear the proclamation of the word is a work that is sinful. The people weren’t doing anything than what we do a normal Sunday evening. They came to worship God and yet this ruler rebuked. This man has had his pride hurt, a visiting rabbi has come and healed this woman and this man can’t stand the fact that Jesus, God himself, has chosen to heal at this moment. The magnificence of this moment has completely gone over his head and instead he reacts with bitterness and anger.

This is the consistent theme throughout much of Jesus ministry, Jesus comes into the world, the covenantal God of Israel shows up, and the pharisees react with condemnation because Jesus comes pointing out their hypocrisy. He shows them that they have twisted and perverted the Law to advance their own gain. The pharisees and the hypocrites were a people who used the law for their own gain. This ruler didn’t care that this woman had been healed, he was not rejoicing over the great act that had just been done, instead he attempts to use the law to condemn Jesus.

Imagine playing a game with a child and they begin telling you how to play the game, so you go to the box and pull out the rules and start explaining how the game is actually played. Except now imagine you actually wrote the rulebook, you created the game, you are the author of everything that is going at that moment. This is what Jesus is about to condemn the ruler for. This man is attempting to tell the author of the Law what the Law actually says. And of course Jesus is going to rebuke this man.

For the law tells us that the sabbath was made for man. God in his grace and mercy to mankind created a day of rest every week so that man could have ease from his labors. And here at this synagogue on the sabbath, God gives another gift to one of his creatures, to one of his daughters. This is the bow wrapped on top of the present. On this day of rest, a day made for worship and respite from labors, the Lord comes and also gives deliverance from the clutches of Satan. This sabbath day is not made so that the ruler of of the synagogue can gauge how much work each person is doing, this day was made so that man can come and worship their God. This is what we also do on the Lord’s day, we come and worship in the presence of the triune God. The point of the Sabbath is not to argue about what is allowed on the day, the point of the Sabbath is praise God for his kindness in giving us a day of rest. To worship God and to have a spirit of thankfulness for all his good gifts.

The ruler of the synagogue should have seen and recognized that this healing was a good gift from God but instead his own twisted and corrupted heart saw this as an affront to his own work. And it is for this pride and selfishness that Jesus rebukes him.

And not only will he rebuke him but he will tell him exactly why it was good that he performed this miracle on the sabbath. He will look at this man and explain what the Sabbath is truly about and why healing is a good thing.

Look with me at Luke 13:15-17

Luke 13:15–17 ESV

Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.

Jesus turns the argument of the Law back on this ruler. He calls the religious rulers of the day hypocrites and then asks them, don’t you on the sabbath, take your own animals and give them water. Don’t you, the men who follow the Law to a t - while still missing the heart of the matter - don’t you do work on the sabbath when you untie your animals and give it water. And yet you criticize Jesus for healing.

And this is where the passage gets so interesting. Jesus then says this woman is a daughter of Abraham and as such it is lawful for Jesus to heal her on the sabbath. This a profound statement, for what Jesus has done is placed a claim on her as his covenantal servant. This woman, who is from the line of Abraham, she belongs to Jesus. She is his responsibility and as such it is good and right and holy for Jesus to heal her whenever he sees fit.

Jesus makes his claim as the covenantal God of Abraham. Abraham, who lived approximately 2000, years before Christ, and yet Jesus says that he is the same God that Abraham worshipped. He is the same God who promised Abraham that his barren wife would have a child, that through his seed - and we know this seed was Christ - all the nations of the world would blessed. The God that Abraham worshipped, the God that Isaac worshipped, the God of Jacob, the Israelites, King David, Elijah, Isaiah, and all of human history stepped into this synagogue and at that moment chose to heal this woman. Why? Because she was his, she was part of his covenant family. She was a member of a covenant where God had said that he would be there God and they would be his people. And at this synagogue that day we see the fulfillment of that promise.

This is what it means when we say that Christ is Lord. It means that he is the God of all creation, the one who created the earth, who redeemed the earth, and is now ruling over every square inch of the created universe. He is the same God who was in covenant with Adam and Noah and Abraham and David and then came to inaugurate the new covenant in his blood. And the religious rulers had the audacity to tell him not to heal on the sabbath. The sabbath that Jesus created, the sabbath that God made as a gift to man. And this ruler attempts to dictate how God is supposed to act with the very thing that he created. Who are you oh man?

Church, there are two things I want you to see in our passage this morning. The first is that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, even the sabbath day. We must respond like the woman and the crowds do in rejoicing in God’s good gifts. The law is not made for us to bury ourselves in so that we can become the most righteous among our friends and fellow church members. No the Law is made for man to see how God has called them to live within his creation. And it is God’s law, it is holy and just and sweeter than a honeycomb. We must not be like the pharisees and attempt to appear more holy than others because of superior theology or a stricter liturgy or because we are reformed. Instead we must worship God in spirit and in truth and praise him for his word and his instructions to us. And above all we must see the beauty and glory of all of God’s good gifts, including his Law. Praise God for the Law for in the Law we see our second point.

We see who Jesus is. Jesus is the covenantal God of his people. He is the God of Abraham and he is the God who see the broken and afflicted among us and offers them hope. He sees the one struggling with chronic pain after years of no answers, he sees the child who is sick and there is no explanation, he sees the elderly who must realize their strength and dexterity are not what they once were. And yes maybe you will not be healed on this side of eternity, maybe you will have your own affliction for 18 or more years but God does promise his people that a day is coming when sin and satan will no longer afflict his people. No longer will we be crushed under the burden of a broken world. Instead there is hope.

And we know this hope exists because it is not just in one synagogue 2000 years ago that God appeared to his people on the Lord’s Day. No it happens every single Sunday when we gather together. It is through the worship of the saints that we too, just like this woman come into the presence of Christ. It is on Sunday when we ascend Mount Zion, as the book of Hebrews tells us, to be in the presence of the living God, to participate in the worship of the new covenant of the sprinkled blood. And it is on these gatherings that God calls us, he assures us of the pardon of sins, and then he feeds us. We come into the presence of Christ to feast, to partake in communion, and receive the good gift of God that is found in bread and wine.

For it is on Sundays that we declare that Jesus is Lord of all the universe. That he is the king, the great high priest, the mediator, and the covenantal God of his people. And just like he sees the woman afflicted by this terrible illness so too does he see you Church. Christ is your covenantal God and he sees you, he sees you as you struggle with sin, as you cry over heartbreaks, as you feel doubt and anxiety, as you look around this room and realize that someone you love is missing, and as you come to confession saying that you are not worthy of his love. Christ sees you. Christ loves you. And Christ says come into my presence and eat at my table. And know that you too one day will be freed from your disability. So Church come in to the presence of the Lord this evening and to his table knowing and rejoicing that Jesus is Lord and that he sees and loves you.

As you go throughout the week, remember that Jesus, the Lord of all, has seen you and every week calls you into his presence to feast with him.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen

Let us pray.

Almighty God, graciously grant that Your Word, which we have heard, may be inscribed inwardly on our hearts. As we receive Your Word meekly with pure affection, may our hearts be filled with love and reverence for You. Cause us to bear the fruit of the Spirit and to live in holiness, diligently following Your commandments. And may it please You to use us to lead those who are lost, wandering, and confused into the way of truth. All this we pray for the honor and praise of Your name, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns now and forever, age after age. Amen