Luke 13:10-17 Who is Really Bound?
Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter thirteen, page 872 in the pew Bibles. Today we are going to look at verses 10-17 where Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath Day.
Let’s just jump straight in.
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 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. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 14 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.” 15 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? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” 17 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.
Let’s pray.
There is a very important guiding principle we must be sure to follow whenever we look to the Bible, whenever we consider God’s Word. That principle is simply: that the text can never mean what it never meant. It can never mean to modern readers what it never meant to its original audience.
In the case of the Gospel of Luke it’s Theophilus and the First Century church. It cannot mean to us what it didn’t mean to them. We may very well apply that meaning in different ways than they did but the meaning remains the same.
This is an incredibly important principle to follow because without it we can go off on all kinds of bunny trails and make historical accounts into allegories and parables of our own making. When it comes to preaching and preparing sermons this is a constant temptation.
Here is an example right from our text.
Jesus symbolically enters into our world. He finds the symbolically crippled and marginalized, symbolically bent over by sin. He brings uprightness and people are symbolically straightened up and praise God for it.
Now are those things generally true? For the most part they are.
Is that why Luke recorded this event in the Synagogue that day, is that the message that the original audience would have received? Probably not.
But just as importantly on the other side of the coin, is this account just about the fact that it was lawful for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath? No, there’s more to it than that.
First, there are a few things for us to recognize.
This particular lady had a, “disabling spirit,” as it says in verse 11, “for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.”
So there are some health professionals here, was her kyphosis caused by osteoporosis or anklosingspondilitis? Neither. Her condition was caused by a disabling spirit. This was not a normal sickness, this was an unclean spirit at work in her body. But equally as important to recognize is the fact that not everybody that is sick is oppressed by the devil.
Your cough, your cold, your cancer, was not brought on by the devil or a demon. Sickness is certainly a result of the Fall, of the curse from Genesis three, and we are sometimes allowed by God to get sick, but we cannot blame every malady that we face as the devil trying to get us, rather, let’s glorify God through our difficulty.
That’s why this lady was afflicted, in order to glorify God.
12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.
This, of course is the appropriate response. It is also a great reminder that when the Father answers your prayers to thank Him and give Him the glory.
But this lady wasn’t the only one in the Synagogue that day that was sick. She had a spiritually induced spinal condition but the leaders of the Synagogue had a spiritually induced heart condition, hardness of heart.
This miracle performed by Jesus in their Synagogue, on a woman they knew with a condition that they would have been familiar with had absolutely no effect on them, it made no impression on their hardened hearts.
14 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.”
Don’t you wonder what they would have said if they were all gathered there on a Tuesday morning instead? I wonder what foolishness they would have come out with then!
Jesus’ response to them is really important. He calls them hypocrites, a Greek word that means: one who pretends to be other than he really is.
This is important because though we tend to judge on the external, Jesus judges the heart, He can see within. So when He calls them hypocrites, it’s because He knows their hearts and their motivations behind what they did and said.
What was it that really made these men hypocrites?
They were attempting to shut the kingdom of heaven in peoples’ faces. They would neither enter themselves nor allow anyone else to enter, as Jesus said in Matthew 23:13 to the Scribes and Pharisees, and taking away the key of knowledge, not entering the kingdom and hindering those who would enter, as He said to the lawyers in Luke 11:52.
These people claimed to belong to God but did not want to see Him work, at least not in a way that would threaten their own man made kingdoms.
15 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? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”
It was lawful to untie your ox or donkey and lead them to water on the Sabbath Day, that didn’t violate the extrabiblical rules that had been passed down by the Pharisees. They would have each literally, “loosed the bonds,” of their animals for their own good that morning after only being bound for the night. Jesus contends that it was just as lawful to loose the bonds of this woman, their sister, after being held for eighteen years on the Sabbath Day.
In Matthew 12:10-12 Jesus dealt with this same question in a different Synagogue and His response was the same.
And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
These Synagogue rulers, as well as those Pharisees and Scribes in Matthew 12, are trying to limit the grace of God as if the exercise of His power on the Sabbath would somehow interrupt His favor on them.
It doesn’t make any sense at all, but their hardness of heart could not be reasoned with.
On the surface it was this poor bent over lady that was bound, but, regardless of her physical condition, she recognized the Messiah, Jesus, and so was free.
In truth it was the Synagogue rulers who were bound, blinded by their own sin, lost to their own traditions of building their own little kingdoms of power and influence.
As Warren Wiersbe said, “Satan puts people in bondage, but true freedom comes from trusting Christ.”
So what about us? If this is the meaning then what is the application?
Are we so busy trying to prove our own worth that we do not recognize the grace of God?
Are we actively, or perhaps unknowingly, attempting to limit the grace of God because we don’t think we need it, or that He wouldn’t possibly extend it to us?
Maybe you are like this poor woman, a happy recipient of God’s grace through Jesus. Praise the Lord!
Maybe you are like the Synagogue rulers, unhappy about how God is manifesting His grace in your midst despite your best efforts to stop it or get Him to do it differently, maybe with a method that you are more comfortable with.
This text, for sure, is a teaching on how it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath, but more importantly it is a reminder that Jesus is our Sabbath and we can rest in Him.
Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Amen.
