Sabbath-Keeping is for Healing – 21 August 2022

Luke 13:10–17

In the first of Jesus’ sermons to be recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus claims that he has been anointed to proclaim release to the captives, and to let the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18). In Luke 13:10–17, we read about Jesus releasing a woman who has been captive to a debilitating disease for eighteen years. This miracle occurs in a synagogue on the Sabbath day. To rebuke Jesus and the healing, the leader of the synagogue quotes almost verbatim the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy: “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, not on the Sabbath day” (Luke 13:14, cf. Exodus 20:9, Deuteronomy 5:13). Jesus responds that the Sabbath day is an appropriate day for a daughter of Abraham to be set free from bondage.

Reflecting on the two explanations God gives in regard to observing the Sabbath offers insight into Jesus’ actions. In Exodus 20, the Sabbath is given to humankind because God worked for six days and rested on the seventh, so humankind is invited to share in God’s rest. In Deuteronomy 5, the Sabbath serves as a reminder that it is God who sets us free and sustains us, so humankind is invited to delight in God’s love. Because of her debilitating disease, the so-called “bent over woman” is not able to share in God’s rest, nor delight in God’s love, on the Sabbath day. For the leader of the synagogue, Jesus’ healing was a violation of the commandment to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy; for the woman, it was Jesus’ healing that set her free to keep the commandment. –– Steven H. Fazenbaker

Isaiah 58:9b–14

[This reading] is a call for the postexilic Judean community to return to its (somewhat idealized) pre-exilic ways. If the ways of the ancestors are remembered, says God, then the ancient blessings will be restored in the land. –– Steven H. Fazenbaker

Hebrews 12:18–29

At the beginning of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, Christ is identified as the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” As the pioneer, Christ opens for us a new way to be in relationship with God. As the perfecter, Christ makes possible a relationship with God that is truly and fully life-giving.

In verses 18–24, the author describes our former relationship to God as a relationship that reminds us of our frailty and mortality—a relationship in which drawing to God causes us to “tremble with fear.” The author goes on to describe our new relationship with Christ as a relationship established by the “sprinkled blood” of Christ (representing sacrificial love) rather than by the spilled “blood of Abel” (representing competitive violence).

No longer shall the awe and majesty of God invoke fear in God’s people. . . This is no offer of cheap grace, however. The author warns that God’s word must still be obeyed. . . Before Christ, we obeyed God out of our fear of punishment. Because of Christ, we now joyfully obey God in response to God’s sacrificial love for us. –– Steven H. Fazenbaker

Steven H. Fazenbaker, a United Methodist minister, is now Program Director of the Division of Student Life at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Homily Service 43, no. 3 (2010): 123–131.