03/21/2018 BENT OVER
Luke 13:10 Now HE was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when JESUS saw her, HE called her and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” And HE laid HIS hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised GOD.
DISCUSSION
JESUS was a teacher. HE spoke in parables in order to try to open his listener’s minds and hearts to the word of GOD. HE taught “by example” in the way HE loved others, in the way that HE “saw” people who suffered. In the way HE extended HIMSELF to the poor and to people in need--the lost, the ignored, the poor, those bonds by sickness and sin.
HE taught lessons of service, sacrifice, compassion and community in a world that favored, “separation,” “racial bias,” “religious bias,” “elitism” “self-interest,” and “bondage.”
The synagogue was a Jewish place of worship. It was the place where the religious leaders often gathered. However, the prominent sects of Judaism during the time of CHRIST---the Pharisees, the Sadducees and Essenes [some might even include the Zealots], however believed themselves “separate” from each other and often the people.
The name “Pharisee” by definition meant “separated one” for they saw themselves as Hebrews who “separated themselves” from every kind of impurity, according the Mosaic law of purity. The Pharisees were so caught up in the “letter of the law”-- ritualistic hand washing, avoiding “sin” and “sinners”-- that they often missed “the SPIRIT of GOD’s law,” which JESUS demonstrated and lived.
According to Smith’s Bible Dictionary, there were seven kinds of Pharisees. One group was the “Bleeders. The Bleeders avoided looking at women, shut their eyes and so bump their heads.” The Pharisee probably walked by this woman every day, as if she were part of the dirt on the road. They did not “see” the woman and some, like the “Bleeders” would have looked away or intentionally crossed over to the other side. This woman was not part of “their world” or “their community.” The idea that someone would interact in public with this woman, extend a hand to this woman must have been an “incomprehensible lesson” for the Pharisee. Many a Pharisee would vehemently proclaim to love GOD and the Mosaic law---but not this woman.
When JESUS had compassion for this bent over woman, HE was teaching a lesson on love. HE was trying to show that in order to love GOD, we must love “one another,” including “the lost,” and “the bent over.” HE also wanted us to know that no matter “how bent over” and “bent out of shape” we may be, HE can lift our burdens, straighten out our lives and set us free.