Sermon 8/24/25

“Healing on the Sabbath: Liberation over Legalism”

Luke 13:10–17 NIV

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Luke Sabbath Healing: The Bent-Over Woman (Luke 13:10–17)

Jesus’ response, citing the accepted practice of untying farm animals so they could get water to drink on the sabbath, is an argument from the lesser to the greater: If it is appropriate to “untie” farm animals on the sabbath, it is so much more appropriate to “untie” (the same word is used) a daughter of Abraham on the sabbath after her eighteen years of imprisonment.

Sabbath as gift and point of contention

—> Sabbath was made for the worship of God

—> We are resting with God

—> part of that rest is connection

—> the woman comes for worship but leaves with a healing

—> Because Jesus had other plans

Jesus as Lord of Sabbath—his priority is compassion, not conformity

—> This is the 3rd sabbath healing in Luke

—> Jesus has been trying to show/model what the Kingdom of God looks like.

—> Its about people not religious systems

—> the world was already full of that

Luke Controversy over a Sabbath Healing (13:10–17)

Jesus loosed the woman from the infirmity in which Satan had bound her. If their law permitted the loosing of a bound (tethered) animal for watering on the Sabbath, should it not be permitted that this woman, not an animal but a freeborn daughter of Abraham, not tethered for a few hours but bound for eighteen years, be loosed from Satan’s bond on the Sabbath? Jesus’ argument, from the lesser to the greater, is incontrovertible.

Transformation that liberates: physically, spiritually, socially.

—> Jesus heals (even on the Sabbath, maybe even especially on the Sabbath) because he wants to heal the whole person.

—> This illness/weakness has shaped this woman’s life for 18 years.