The story of Jesus healing the crippled woman  teaches us a powerful lesson about freedom from bondage.

Just as the woman’s deformed back was  healed after long suffering,

so too can we be lifted up and freed from our own captivity  by the healing touch of our loving Savior.

As Jesus is teaching on the Sabbath in a  synagogue, a woman, who is severely hunched  

over catches his eye. She has suffered for 18  long years in this debilitating state. As one  

who is bent over and unable to lift herself up,  she not only would have been literally looked down  

upon by others but most likely figuratively as  well. Anciently people often saw infirmities “as  

a result of God’s disapproval” because of sin or  unworthiness. Luke states that the woman suffered  

from “a spirit of infirmity” which could point to  some sort of mental or spiritual struggle as well.  

Perhaps this also meant she felt shame or  depression because of her imperfect body.

Fortunately, there is One in the  crowded synagogue who does not look  

down upon this woman. Jesus sees her among  the people and calls her to him. Bravely, she  

pushes past those who can stand straight and tall,  and with her imperfect body, comes to Christ.  

He then reaches out his hand to touch  her. Jewish men did not customarily touch  

women whom they were not related to. They  feared it could make them ritually unclean.  

Nevertheless, he lays his hand upon her and says,  “Woman, thou are loosed from thine infirmity.”  

The original Greek word here for “loosed”  means to be released or liberated. Immediately,  

for the first time in almost two decades,  she is able to rise and stand straight.

The Jewish leaders were not impressed.  They immediately began to criticize  

Jesus for performing this miracle on the Sabbath.  While Jesus had not broken the law, he had broken  

down what was known as the “oral law.” For years,  the leadership had built a barrier or a fence,  

so to speak, around the laws of God with a series  of cultural traditions or rules in an attempt to  

prevent one from breaking any commandments. As  these barriers became more and more restrictive,  

it distanced the people from the true purpose  of the law, hiding it from their view.

Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of these supposed laws  

by pointing out that the true purpose of the  Sabbath has been lost. He teaches that this  

holy day is set aside for the Lord’s work.  It is a day to commemorate the creation,  

for remembering the deliverance from  slavery in Egypt, and to praise God.

The woman has come to be refreshed spiritually, as  have all the others. What better day to be healed  

than on the Sabbath day! How fitting that  once made whole, she glorifies the Lord,  

for it is especially on this day we are  to pay our devotions unto the Most High.

Jesus declares, “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?”  If even the Jews can give water to their animals  

on the Sabbath, when better for this  woman to drink of the living water?

When studying the scriptures, we gain a  better understanding of this account by  

looking at its context. With this in mind, let’s  consider what Jesus taught immediately before  

and after his miraculous healing of this woman  as it will add greater insights to these events.

Before the story of the healing, Jesus  was telling the people at the synagogue  

the story of when the tower of Siloam had  collapsed, crushing 18 people (the same  

number of years this woman had suffered).  Just as these people were killed through  

no fault of their own, so too had this woman  done nothing wrong to suffer this infirmity.  

By connecting these two stories, we can learn  that even bad things can happen to good people.

After the woman is healed and able to stand  straight once again, Jesus does something  

remarkable. He calls her by a name that only  appears once in the Bible—Daughter of Abraham.  

The Jews saw Abraham as the  greatest of the patriarchs,  

and that the promised blessings came through  him because of his and Sarah’s faithfulness.  

Jesus makes sure that those at the synagogue  that day understand that despite how they  

might see her, the Lord sees  her true worth and divinity.

Later in the chapter, Jesus shares two short  parables, one of the mustard seed and one of the  

leavened bread. He explains that even the tiniest  of seeds can grow into a tree. Even a little bit  

of leaven, or yeast, when added to flour will  permeate the dough producing large loaves of  

bread. He possibly shares these parables to help  the people see the great importance of this woman,  

and each of us, as a child of God. Perhaps after  years of seeing her bent over, others could not  

imagine the good this woman could do. However in  her is a seed, albeit small, that contains what  

Peter calls her “divine nature.” No one should  discount the divine potential of this small woman.

This woman had spent 18 years looking down. Her  myopic, or limited view, would have been focused  

on the rocks, dirt, and the ground below her  feet. Now her field of vision has broadened and  

she can look directly into another’s eyes. Now  others can see the light of Christ in her eyes  

and that she has always had the  ability to bless those around her.

In the challenging world we live in today,  we can feel like we are in bondage. Crippled  

with feelings of unworthiness, grief, depression,  and anxiety, we might not see our own self-worth  

or feel we can lift ourselves up. We might  compare our bodies given to us by God  

to what the world tells us  perfection should look like.  

It can be easy to just focus on the ground below  us failing to see the blue majestic skies above.

We might wonder if we are somehow  unworthy or unloved by God  

when our own towers of Siloam fall down  crushing us and holding us captive. But  

like this crippled woman, we too have the  potential to be magnificent. We can stand tall  

knowing we are children of our Heavenly Father  and partakers of the covenant of Abraham.

Jesus always sees our true divinity,  no matter where we may be focusing  

our gaze. With so much demanding our time and  attention, God has given us one day each week,  

the Sabbath day, to focus on Him and do  His work. He is beckoning us to come to Him  

so that our spirits can be lifted up and we can  be refreshed and made whole. He wants us to be  

free from what binds us. And then, like  this woman healed by the Master’s touch,  

we too can praise and glorify the name of  our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ.