As we near the end of summer, this week’s Scripture readings from Isaiah 58:9-14, Psalm 103:1-8, and Luke 13:10-17 invite us to consider the importance of Sabbath rest time. God gives us the gift of Sabbath because we need rest. In the midst of life’s busyness, it’s important to take time to pause and reflect, to spend time in worship giving thanks for what God’s done. The prophet Isaiah makes it clear how much God values Sabbath, calling on God’s people to “refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day.”
And yet, Sabbath rest cannot be allowed to become a legalistic excuse for us to avoid helping others. When Jesus sees a woman in need, he heals her, even though it’s a Sabbath. He’s willing to endure controversy and criticism for the sake of loving one of God’s children.
This week’s sermon is lightly adapted from my 2016 sermon on these texts, Sabbath Seeing. I was also inspired by Karl Bawel’s GodPause devotion for Friday, August 22, 2025.
Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and the podcast sermon audio from Christ the King.
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Grace and peace to you from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
There are many parts of the Bible that are difficult to understand. Fred talked last week about some parts being a bit like a Magic Eye picture, where you have to kind of cross your eyes to make sense of it, where the messages take a lot of study and background knowledge to make sense.
Today’s story is pretty straightforward; it’s easy to visualize. We have three characters in this little drama.
First, there’s Jesus. Our story opens on the Sabbath, and as a good Jewish Rabbi, Jesus is spending his day teaching in the synagogue. A crowd of Sabbath worshippers is there listening, and as he’s teaching, he picks out a woman in the crowd—our second character.
Luke tells us this woman is crippled, bent over for 18 years, but that’s about all we know about her.
Maybe she’s a lonely widow, new to this synagogue, or perhaps this is her community, worshiping surrounded by friends and family. Maybe she’s young, bent over her whole life, or maybe there was a life-changing accident.
Maybe her ailment is physical and she has some sort of spinal or back problem.
Or maybe when it says a spirit has crippled her it means she’s so depressed that she can’t stand up, overwhelmed by burdens of fear or sorrow.
The advantage of knowing so little is that we can see ourselves in her. What is keeping you bent down this morning? What burdens are you carrying? From what would you have Jesus set you free?
As he’s preaching, Jesus notices her. And it’s more than just a glance; he really sees her. He recognizes her as a child of God, encounters her as a human being, one of God’s beloved.
And notice: She doesn’t come up to Jesus and ask for help. She’s just there at the synagogue to worship, perhaps to hear a word of hope, and Jesus sees her, calls her over, and lays his hands on her, saying “Woman, you are set free from our ailment.”
Hear those words from Jesus. “You are set free.”
Immediately, the woman stands up. Her life is changed. She’s encountered Jesus, and she’s never going to be the same again. And she reacts the only the way she can: Praising God. She recognizes who’s responsible for her healing, and she gives thanks.
Maybe you’re here today to worship because you’ve had that kind of life-changing encounter with God. You’ve gone through the valley and God’s lifted you out of it, and all you can do is give thanks.
For those of us who don’t have a single dramatic healing moment to point to, I think it can be easier to forget what God’s done for us.
That’s why gathering week after week to hear this story of a God who loves you enough to die for you is so important—and all we can when faced with such wondrous love is give thanks.
Luke doesn’t tell us her exact words as she praises God, but as a good Jewish woman, she’d likely have known the Psalms by heart. Maybe her words of praise came from the Psalm we just read, Psalm 103.
I can picture her saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases.”
And then I can’t imagine she goes home from Sabbath worship like normal. I think her entire life is different. I’m sure she’s telling people from then on about her encounter with Jesus.
There’s a third character in this story, the leader of the synagogue, and he’s…let’s say he’s not as joyful and filled with praise as the woman, but let’s assume the best.
This is a man who’s given his life to seeking to please God and to serving in the synagogue. He’s responsible for making sure things get done correctly, in good order. In our context, he’d care about Robert’s Rules of order at church council meetings; he’d make sure every bill is accurate and paid correctly.
I’m sure he cares about the woman, and he’s happy she’s been healed, but that’s not what’s supposed to happen on the Sabbath! The Sabbath is a time of rest, of learning and teaching. There are six other days to get stuff done.
It’s a slippery slope, and he’s a law and order kind of guy. Couldn’t this woman have waited? It’s been 18 years, what’s one more day to wait for healing? Or rather, couldn’t Jesus have noticed her some other time?
There’s a way things are supposed to be done, and this isn’t it! Can’t we respect just one day a week for God? Can’t we have reverence for one day?
And of course, he’s not all wrong. Sabbath time is a fragile gift, and we give it up so easily. In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah warned against “trampling on the Sabbath…pursuing your own interests on [God’s] holy day.”
The idea of the Sabbath is to have a dedicated day of rest, and I think we’re probably worse at keeping it today than pretty much ever in history. We’re addicted to keeping in touch, to always being available. And I’m as guilty as anyone. My phone is the last light I see at night and the first thing I look at in the morning. We expect businesses to be open every day at all hours for our convenience. The idea of an intentional day of rest—the idea of disconnecting—is hard!
But there are two ways you can go wrong when you try to take time for Sabbath.
One way is to ignore the gift of Sabbath entirely. Too often we lose any sense of Sabbath rest on Sunday as our time fills up with getting done everything we didn’t have time for during the week. I suspect most of us could use a little more time pausing from work to intentionally spent time with God.
But the other error is to do what the religious leader in this story does, making the Sabbath overly legalistic. Lots of religious groups have done this, like the Puritans, who took the commandments so seriously they made doing anything on Sunday a legal crime.
Jesus points out in this story how ridiculous this strict legalistic enforcement is. Sabbath is not supposed to prevent us from doing good, and yet it’s all too easy for us to use rest time as an excuse for turning inward and ignoring the world, or even trying to control what others do.
In Mark 2, Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath.” Sabbath is meant to be a gift, not a burden.
It’s certainly not an excuse to avoid doing good, acting out of love. As Paul says in Romans 13, “Love is the fulfilling of the law,” so the correct way to interpret the law is always by choosing the most loving opinion. Jesus is willing to step outside human interpretations of rules in order to love this child of God.
Of course, another danger of Sabbath is that focusing on God has a tendency to change us, especially how we see God and other people.
When Jesus sees this woman, he knows what he’s doing. He names her as a “daughter of Abraham”—a child of God—and he acts out of love. I doubt he’s surprised by the religious leader’s reaction. Healing on the Sabbath creates a controversy, but Jesus cares far more about liberating this woman from her suffering than he does about keeping everyone else happy.
So, which of these three characters are we?
Are we like the woman whose life Jesus changes, responding in praise to God?
Are we like the religious official, valuing the law and protecting Sabbath time?
Or are we like Jesus, setting people free, even when it’s controversial?
Are we supposed to keep the Sabbath, or are we supposed to do stuff on it?
The answer is yes. We need intentional time to gather in worship like we’re doing right now. We need intentional rest time to focus on God, to recognize that we’re in the presence of God.
And when we focus on God, we should expect to be changed. When we encounter Jesus, when we spend time in God’s presence, it should lead us to see others in a new way, to act for the benefit of others, not merely pursuing our own interests.
The woman sees what Jesus has done for her; she recognizes God’s care for her, and she’s moved to praise.
The synagogue leader (we hope!) realizes people are more valuable than rules.
As we gather today and every week for much-needed Sabbath time, may the way we see others and ourselves be changed. May we see people as Jesus sees them, and act out of love.
And may we trust that like the woman, we are seen by Jesus, the one who meets us here and in the world, the One who notices us and sets us free. Amen.