{"id":3955,"date":"2016-06-16T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=3955"},"modified":"2021-11-26T06:55:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T22:55:44","slug":"154-mercy-demonstrated-jesus-healing-a-bent-over-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=3955","title":{"rendered":"154. Mercy Demonstrated: Jesus Healing a Bent-Over Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 <\/sup>Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.\u00a011 <\/sup>And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.\u00a012 <\/sup>When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, \u201cWoman, you are set free from your ailment.\u201d\u00a013 <\/sup>When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.\u00a014 <\/sup>But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, \u201cThere are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.\u201d\u00a015 <\/sup>But the Lord answered him and said, \u201cYou hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?\u00a016 <\/sup>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?\u201d\u00a017 <\/sup>When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing<\/span>.<\/strong> [Luke 13:10-17<\/span>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Christ healing an infirm woman<\/span><\/em>, by James Tossot, 1886.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Gospels narrate many healing miracles performed by Jesus. As varied and striking as they are, they all carry the power of a symbol in pointing to and bringing to life the compassionate and merciful heart of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are here spotlighting one particular episode for demonstration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Variously described as \u201cinfirm\u201d, \u201cbent over\u201d or \u201ccrippled\u201d, the woman featured in Luke 13:10-17 who encounters Jesus in the synagogue is one who suffers from kyphosis<\/em>, a sickness of excessive outward curvature of the spine, causing hunching of the back.<\/span><\/p>\n

This encounter demonstrates the mercy of God in the presence of the legalistic minded pious people and their religious leaders. It yields multiple pointers for reflection.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. A \u201cspirit\u201d that cripples<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This Scripture, we notice at the outset, focuses not<\/em> on the woman\u2019s symptom as we tend to do. Rather, it stresses the underlying cause of her ailment, namely, \u201ca spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years<\/em>.\u201d This surely is an important detail.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, \u201ca spirit\u201d? What would that be?<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, with her physical<\/em> deformity, this woman would also be socially<\/em> deformed. Shunned almost like an outcast, there was every risk that she might also have lost her family support and become poor.<\/span><\/p>\n

The narrative, we notice, does not indicate her name, suggesting perhaps her \u201cnamelessness\u201d in a pious and religious community that deemed people plagued by sicknesses as having been cursed by God, or at least disfavoured by the Almighty. \u201cPiety\u201d and \u201creligiousness\u201d, we all know, can be a thin veneer beneath which is a powerful but cruel spirit that would demean, exclude and ostracise those who are already suffering in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

The poor woman was shrouded under this vicious spirit. For 18 years, whatever hope she might have entertained in other people\u2019s generous human spirit would have been seriously tested and, chances are, badly dented. She would have in all probabilities retreated into herself, and by and by developed in her heart a negative spirit of shame, of unworthiness, and of fear of rejection. The crippling spirit of which St Luke wrote is a negative spirit that exerts from without and reacts to from within.<\/span><\/p>\n

This crippled woman has to be \u201creleased\u201d from that crippling spirit both from the community and from herself. In mercy, Jesus wants to set her free.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. A healing that is \u201cfreeing\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When, then, St Luke says that Jesus sets the woman free<\/em> from her ailment, we are at once alerted to the fact that this is not ordinary “healing” as we understand it. This is a woman who has for the last eighteen years experienced life difficulties precisely because she lived a life shrouded in social stigma. She was a person everyone else would try to avoid, to make snide remarks of behind her back, who is embarrassing to be seen together with. So, in healing her, Jesus does an even more crucial thing, and that is, freeing her from the \u2018spirit\u2019 that had crippled her physically and socially for so long.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this healing-and-freeing undertaken by Jesus, he demonstrates mercy in three important dimensions:<\/span><\/p>\n