Who would complain at someone doing right? Those threatened by it.
Jesus heals a woman bent for 18 years (Luke 13:10-17). Wonderful, everybody is pleased – aren’t they? Well, no. The synagogue official complains that it isn’t right, the Sabbath law is being broken.
Jesus response is first to say that if Sabbath law allows an animal to be freed to be taken to water, it certainly allows a woman to be freed from a worse constraint. His second point is more severe. This healing is not “work” so much as setting free from the power of evil. No one argues with him, at least not immediately, but opposition is growing and this is the last time Luke tells us of Jesus in a synagogue.
So, given this was so long ago, does it matter? We might look at Christian attitudes to rest, and think how the Devil would bend them:
- one way to avoid a useful time of refreshment, worship and gaining perspective would be to over-emphasise the rule. Let it be absolute, but also purposeless, negative, empty, hollow. That should keep people away from God, and God’s intention in a day of rest.
- another (more common in my experience) would be to rubbish Sunday observance. They could tell stories of not being allowed to play on Sundays as children, and forget how others needed rest. Let people do as they want, Let people overwork, make sure families have no time together, and make the Church family unable to meet all together at one time. Make it hardest for the poor, who will not be able to refuse unsocial work hours.
Jesus will do neither. His first concern is for God, his second for people. He keeps the Law, but not always as others have been in the habit of doing. We could learn from that. Living by rules is never enough (it is what can give religion a bad name!), but refusing all discipline is no answer either. We have to learn Jesus priorities: love and serve God, love and serve other people, don’t reject rules, but never let them be an excuse for avoiding the first two priorities.
” And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” ” (Luke 13:16) Certainly, yes, she should be released, and we should be finding our own freedom and bringing release to others by the power and grace of God.