Invocation

#668, O Thou Who Hearest

O Thou who hearest every heartfelt prayer,

With Thy rich grace, Lord, all our hearts prepare;

Thou art our Life, Thou art our love and light,

O let this Sabbath hour with Thee be bright. Amen.

WHEN JESUS ENDED IT!

Written by Pastor Anthony R. Kent, PhD candidate

GC Ministerial Association Associate Secretary

Introduction

[title slide]

Today is a special emphasis Sabbath for an issue that plagues our society at every level. Women in very income bracket, every ethnicity, every political persuasion and every religion experience domestic abuse. Statistically, 25% of intimate relationships experience violence or abuse of some kind. Thankfully, those statistics are considerably lower in families where both spouses actively participate in the life and worship of a church.

Once a year the women’s ministries department of the North American Division sponsors a Sabbath to emphasis an initiative to End It Now! The goal is to educate and inform in order to create a culture where victims are safe to come forward and seek help and perpetrators are convicted to reform.

Today we’re going to look at a story in the gospels where Jesus ended the suffering of a woman who may have experienced physical violence in her youth, and who had most certainly been subjected to emotional and spiritual abuse.

For eighteen years the woman had suffered. Standing up straight was a distant, faded memory. She would have liked to have stored her food above the ground in her small home, but she couldn’t reach up, so she did her best to keep the rodents away from her supplies lying on the floor. No doubt she longed to see a majestic blue sky with white puffy clouds gently sailing, suspended in space, or to look up into the night sky and see the stars and a full moon, glowing softly in the sky. Instead, her field of view was perpetually turned downward, confined to seeing the dry barren paths of the Middle East and the rubbish left behind by animals.

For eighteen years she had suffered with this condition. There was no relief. The people she interacted with most had grown used to talking to the top her head instead of seeing her face. Many saw her as a nuisance, and most saw her as someone to be pitied.

For eighteen years she had gone to the synagogue each Sabbath. It wasn’t easy to go to the synagogue, because walking was difficult. And when she did arrive, there was no real welcome from the leaders. Getting there and being there was a challenge. But each Sabbath she persevered, and she went to the synagogue in faith and in hope. And then, one Sabbath a visitor was at the synagogue, and He changed everything! HE ENDED IT! He healed her, and his name is Jesus—Jesus of Nazareth!

Jesus and His Mission in Luke’s Gospel

The only account of the Sabbath healing of this bent-over-woman is in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 13:10-17). Before we explore this story we need to invest a few moments looking at the broader context of Luke’s Gospel.

Jesus is the star of Luke’s Gospel—the Jesus that comes from Nazareth. So its only fitting that Luke would use the story of Jesus’ first teaching from the town of Nazareth as the mechanism for telling us about Jesus’ purpose and mission.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 4:16-19:

[next x2]

Luke 4:16–19 ESV

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This story in Nazareth occurs immediately after Jesus had been baptized by his cousin John in the Jordan River and spent a month in the wilderness. The Bible says that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible is also very clear that Jesus had a custom of attending the synagogue on Sabbath.

One of Jesus’ important values is teaching. Luke shows us the side of Jesus that wants people to be informed and educated. He’s not interested in leaving people where they are, he wants to see healing and transformation and growth in every aspect of our lives—spiritual, physical, social and mental. So, Jesus taught the people, but what did he teach them?

Jesus taught the Bible! This is the first record we have of Jesus teaching, and the very first thing out of his mouth when he taught the people in Nazareth was from the Bible. Jesus quoted from Isaiah 61:1, 2.

Another important detail we discover from this Nazareth Sabbath teaching event is the love that Jesus has for people. Notice the emphasis of Jesus’ Biblical teaching at the synagogue in Nazareth:

“good news to the poor”

“liberty to the captives”

“recovering of sight to the blind”

“to set at liberty those who are oppressed”

“to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”

All of Jesus’ teaching at Nazareth revolves around ministering to others—particularly, the impoverished, the hostages, the physically disabled, and the victims of oppression. And because the Spirit was upon Jesus, he wasn’t just speaking platitudes or offering vain hope, he was empowered follow through and rescue people from dire circumstances.

[blank]

It’s difficult for us to comprehend the challenges a New Testament era woman would face. Some were certainly well off, but this time in history had more than its share of women who suffered from poverty, enslavement, and oppression. In what was a male-dominant society, Jesus lifted up women from their suffering and empowered them in the Gospel. Mary and Martha, the woman caught in adultery, the woman by the well, the woman who’s daughter had a demon, the three women who were benefactors to Jesus, the woman with the issue of blood, and this woman that we find in Luke 13. All of them, and many more, were blessed by Jesus’ presence, his words, and his healing power. Each of these stories demonstrates a facet of Jesus’ counter-cultural response to the hardships women faced in his time on earth.

Turn with me to Luke 13:10-17 as we explore this story in more detail.

[Read Luke 13:10-17]

[Next x 6]

Luke 13:10–17 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. 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.” 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.

[blank]

On his way to Jerusalem Jesus paused at this unnamed location to observe Sabbath and to attend the synagogue. I love how Luke fails to give this place a name, or to identify the woman by name. It’s as though he wants the reader to put themselves in her shoes and to see their time and place as a place where Jesus wants to stop. All women who are in bondage, in all places, and in all times can see this story as a story hope for them.

Luke, with the tenderness of a physician, describes the severity of her condition. She was bent over and unable to straighten up. And what’s more, she had endured this for eighteen long, miserable years! That was a long time to suffer!

We all know someone who suffers from a bent-over experience. Its a little hard to imagine the pain that they are experiencing, but lets try.

Think about those tight, sore muscles around your back and neck when you’re dealing with a particularly difficult stressor. The longer those muscles ache the more attention you give them. Sometimes, all you can think about is your sore back. Now, imagine that degeneration of the bone has forced more and more of the work of holding you upright onto your soft tissues. All of your muscles would be making up for the lack of support in your spine. You would suffer a constant pain—so constant that your body might tune it out to some extent. Like the person who lives next to a railroad crossing; they know the train is coming by but their brain barely registers it. There’s a longing to be relieved from the pain, but a hopeless settling into the pain that the person knows has no remedy. They know because through the years they’ve tried every surgery, every drug, every calcium supplement possible and still no relief.

That is the experience of this poor woman. Day and night, she was unable to straighten up. Even in her sleep, this misery never left her!

Bible students have speculated about the specific disease or ailment she was inflicted with. John Wilkinson suggests that Ankylosing spondylitis is the most likely malady—an arthritis of the spine, shoulders and hips. This disease has no cure. It often begins in young adults, and men are several times more likely than women to have this disease.

Others suggest that this woman suffered from scoliosis or a similar developmental disease.

If only for the sake of illustration, I’d like to suggest that this woman may have been suffering the consequences violent abuse. Sometime in her youth or childhood, a man in her life beat her, used her, and left her in a state of continual suffering to live out her life in humiliation.

Whatever the source of her malady, Jesus laid the ultimate blame on Satan (verse 16). Whether it was disease or abuse, Satan is the acting agent that brings misery and causes our captivity.

There is nothing Christ-like about the abuse of women—it is the work of Satan! There is nothing redeeming about inflicting violence upon women—acts of violence are also the work of evil! No genuine Christian would force himself on a woman—not even his wife! No genuine Christian would beat a woman—especially the one he promised to love as his wife! This type of behavior is totally at odds with the teaching and values of Jesus! No man who claims to have Christ residing in his heart would do anything that would belittle, bully, or cause pain to a woman—whether that pain be physical, mental, emotional or psychological.

When Jesus came to that synagogue on that Sabbath, everything changed! He taught wonderful and beautiful things from the Bible!

Then … out of the crowd, Jesus saw her. Way in the back, shorter than everyone else, and yet, Jesus saw her.

The Bible says that Jesus “called her” (verse 12).

This is a woman of faith. Every Sabbath she came to the synagogue—and maybe even more often than that. When she heard the authority and tenderness of Jesus’ teaching, she knew that God was present. And when Jesus called to her, she picked up her disabled body and brought herself to Him, stooped over and staring at his feet.

Then Jesus said the most wonderful words she had ever heard:

“Woman, you are freed from your disability” (verse 12)!

Not only did Jesus speak compassionately—empathetically—to her, but he also reached out and toucher her with the gentle and kind touch of a friend. No, with the touch of the Saviour and Healer!

The Bible makes sure that we catch this next important point: “Immediately she was made straight” (verse 13)!

Jesus had ended it! Jesus had stopped her physical pain!

She was free! This was her “good news”—her gospel! She was liberated from her captivity! Now she could see more than the floor! Her physical oppression was over! She was experiencing the Lord’s favor! All that Jesus had promised in his teaching at Nazareth in Luke 4:16-19 was coming true for her!

Jesus’ teaching was and is real!

As a result of the ministry of the Creator, her body was becoming what it was originally intended to be—healthy and upright! She could now look into people’s faces. Her joy must have been exuberant! Jesus’ face was probably the first face she saw as she stood tall for the first time in eighteen years.

And upon being miraculously healed, the very first thing the Bible says she does is: “She glorified God” (Luke 13:13)! Of all the Sabbath miracles in Luke, she was the first and only healed person to praise God when she was “set free from her infirmity” (verse 12, NKJV).

Just as she had done nothing to deserve her eighteen years of suffering, she had done nothing to earn, or to buy, or to deserve this healing. She was healed only by the grace of Jesus Christ! For this reason, she glorified God. And by glorifying God, she was letting the world know what she thought of Jesus!

But(!) … while her physical pain and physical health had been restored, her psychological torment wasn’t finished.

Also in the crowd that Sabbath morning was the Synagogue Ruler. He was not impressed with what was happening in his synagogue! He was indignant! The synagogue ruler and his supporters—who for the duration of this story seem to remain silently in the background—were most likely a small but very influential part of the crowd that day. A synagogue ruler was a powerful person because he often financed the construction of the synagogue, giving him a quasi-ownership of the synagogue. A synagogue ruler held a prestigious position in the community. His high level of authority empowered him to conduct worship and determine who participated during the Sabbath services. A synagogue ruler also, most likely, offered interpretations of the Torah for the people.

In his indignation, the synagogue ruler spouted: “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day” (verse 14).

Not all synagogue rulers were negative or bad but this one was!

His angry outburst was loaded with abuse for both Jesus and this precious woman.

He was using the Sabbath as a weapon against Jesus and against the woman. He even quoted a portion of the Sabbath commandment in his attack! Sadly, this is a technique often used by people who abuse others. They take the words of Scripture and distort them for their evil purposes. Satan did this when tempting Jesus in the wilderness, and the apostle Peter warns in 2 Peter 3:15-16, “There are some things in them [Paul’s writings] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”

Tragically, this still happens today, even in some Seventh-day Adventist churches!

The Bible is not a tool to be used to justify the abuse of women!

When the Bible is correctly read we see that it uplifts women to their rightful, God-given status as co-regents of the world. Both Adam and Eve were given rulership of the world in the garden of Eden. It is the curse of sin, not the command of God that causes men and women to strive for the highest position—to be ruler over each other. By contrast, the gospel restores our god-given unity, inviting us to submit ourselves one to another. Paul, in Ephesians, points out that husbands and wives should submit themselves to each other—the wife submitting to the husband, the husband loving his wife like Christ does.

The synagogue ruler’s response that there are “six days in which work ought to be done” implies that he knew this woman or at least that he knew of her. His words implied this disabled woman ‘is always around,’ ‘she’s always in the village,’ ‘everyone knows her, she isn’t hard to find.’ This is a tactic of abusers. He’s not encouraging her to be healed, he is in fact doing the exact opposite. It’s almost as if he wants Jesus to undo his healing! And he makes is disgusting opinion known through the guise of religiosity.

The implication was that healing was not a sabbath-approved activity. But Jesus wasn’t breaking the Sabbath, he was restoring it to the intention that God had designed it for—restoration, healing, joy, and loving relationship. Jesus did nothing on Sabbath to desecrate the holiness of the day! Ending the misery of a woman on the Sabbath is not breaking the Sabbath. It’s observing the Sabbath in its truest form!

Ellen White offers us some valuable insights in Prophets and Kings regarding Jesus and the Sabbath:

Christ, during His earthly ministry, emphasized the binding claims of the Sabbath; in all His teaching He showed reverence for the institution He Himself had given. In His days the Sabbath had become so perverted that its observance reflected the character of selfish and arbitrary men rather than the character of God. ...Although followed with merciless hostility by the rabbis, He did not even appear to conform to their requirements, but went straight forward keeping the Sabbath according to the law of God.

(Ellen White, Prophets and Kings, 183)

[blank]

The synagogue ruler failed to recognize Jesus’ divine identity. But Luke wants to make sure you don’t miss eat. Notice Luke 13:15, “Then the Lord answered him …” The Lord! This title reminds readers of Jesus’ own words recorded in Luke 6:5, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Jesus, as Lord of the Sabbath, answered this critical, demeaning synagogue ruler and his silent supporters with: “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?” (Luke 13:15-16).

Jesus put this abuser in his rightful place! A show of religiosity does not make one a follower of God. They were hypocrites because while making a show of their religion in public, in private they showed more compassion to animals than they did to a woman who was a ‘daughter of Abraham,’ a person created in the image of God!

The synagogue ruler and his allies would not allow a beast to go for a few hours on Sabbath without being released and watered. However, they were outraged that a woman’s suffering was not extended for at least another day!

Spiritual Abuse

While this woman’s physical suffering was ended by the healing provided by Jesus, the synagogue ruler was extending her spiritual and emotional suffering with his heartless attitudes and words. It is for this reason that some of the strongest and most direct words we have in the Bible were directed against this man who used his privileged position to harm a woman.

Not only did Jesus come to the support of the healed woman, he aligned himself with her. By designating her as ‘a daughter of Abraham,’ Jesus put Abraham on the side of the woman and himself. The synagogue ruler, by his opposition to the healing, was inferring that he would prefer to see the woman remain bound—bound by Satan. So, the synagogue ruler found himself on the same side as Satan, in opposition to Jesus, to a ‘daughter of Abraham,’ and to Abraham himself.

Some may try to dismiss the importance of the “End it Now” initiative. They may say that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has a mission to proclaim the truth and that we mustn’t be distracted by these social issues.

Notice these important words from Ellen White in Medical Ministry:

[next]

True sympathy between man and his fellowman is to be the sign distinguishing those who love and fear God from those who are unmindful of His law. [Christ's] religion led to the doing of genuine medical missionary work. He was a healing power. “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice,” He said. This is the test that the great Author of truth used to distinguish between true religion and false.

Ellen White, Medical Ministry, 251

[blank]

We cannot ignore women who are being marginalized or suffering abuse and victimization. We have an ongoing duty to protect and shield any woman in these vile circumstances. I’m so pleased that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has a Department of Women’s Ministries that is represented at every level of our organization. And I’m glad that they are facilitating this significant initiative of enditnow®.

I’m pleased that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency), which operates special safe sanctuaries for women and girls who have been abused, trafficked, and sold into the most satanic circumstances.

In every place and in every congregation, we must end it now!

Conclusion

How did Jesus’ visit to this unnamed synagogue end?

The woman received healing: physical, emotional, and spiritual.

The enduring image is of a healed woman standing straight and upright, praising God. This daughter of Abraham, who had been bent over, becomes a model for all people of all ages – showing what Jesus can do with someone who is bent over and oppressed by Satan and his allies.

Would you like Jesus to heal you—to re-shape your life and your future?

There may be some in our audience today who recognize that they have aligned themselves with Satan in bringing a controlling, oppression, and abusive spirit to their home. If you have been one of those men then now is the time to ask Jesus for a new heart so that you can treat the women in your life as Jesus treated women—with kindness, compassion and respect.

There are likely several women here who can identify with the bent-over woman because they too are suffering. You could be bent over physically, spiritually or emotionally. If you are one of these women then Jesus wants you to experience healing too. He wants you to be able to stand up straight and tall, just like that women in Luke 13 did when she was healed. Just as Jesus healed her, Jesus can touch you with his pure love, re-shaping your life and your future. Jesus’ words speak to you today, just as they spoke to the bent-over woman.

Listen as I read Luke 13:12 again from five versions:

“Woman, you are freed from your disability.” [7]

“Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”[8]

“Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”[9]

“Woman, you are healed of your sickness.”[10]

“Woman, you’re free!”[11]

That Sabbath, in that village, in that synagogue, Jesus ended that woman’s suffering. Jesus ended how that woman had been treated for eighteen years. He ended it!

Today, on this Sabbath, in Bonners Ferry, in this church, Jesus wants to end it for you too!

Jesus didn’t create ‘daughters of Abraham,’ ‘sisters in Christ,’ and ‘mothers of Israel’ to be abused!

It’s time to remove physical violence, sexual abuse, emotional and verbal abuse, and spiritual manipulation from our homes and church.

It’s time to end it now!