Set Free on the Sabbath: The Hunched Woman’s Story (SEEN SERIES)

She slumps into her seat in the back row, feeling out of place. Bent double, eyes on the ground, bound by eighteen years of oppression. The hunched woman from Luke 13 enters the synagogue, little knowing that an encounter with Jesus is about to set her free.

In this episode we meet one of the most overlooked women in all of scripture and discover what her healing on the Sabbath reveals about God's gift of rest, restoration, and freedom.

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Transcript

Sabbath As A Restoring Gift

Teresa Whiting 0:00

We are invited to observe the Sabbath. We're invited to take one day out of every seven and stop working and use that day to be restored, to focus on God, to celebrate His goodness, to enjoy the good gifts that He's given us. Observing Sabbath is not a duty to be performed, but a gift to be treasured. Hi, friend. Welcome to Beauty in the Brokenness, where we have honest conversations about the Bible, our real life struggles, and the hope God brings for healing. I'm your host, Teresa Whitey, an author, Bible teacher, and trauma-informed life coach, but mostly a friend and fellow struggler. No matter who you are or where you've been, I'm inviting you to encounter the God who is still creating beauty right in the midst of your brokenness. Well, we have reached the last woman in the scene series, and this is the hunched woman. And it's funny because whenever I tell people that I'm writing a Bible study about six women in the Bible, and I go through the names of all the women, I get to this sixth person and I say the hunched woman, and everybody's like, huh? Who is that? And I'm like, exactly. This is a woman who is so easily overlooked in scripture. I didn't even know who she was. My friend Mary Kay was like, Hey, why don't you add the hunched woman to this study? And I was like, Who's the hunched woman? So we find her story in Luke 13, and she is easily overlooked or ignored, but Jesus didn't overlook her. Jesus actually picked her out of the crowd and he saw her and he set her free from oppression, physical and spiritual oppression. And as is my practice, I like to start these episodes with a creative retelling of her story. I shuffle toward the synagogue, walking slowly, head down, always down. I could try to crane my neck, but from my bent position it's easier to just keep my eyes trained on the dusty road and follow the feet of those walking ahead of me. I'm not quite sure what keeps me coming back. Perhaps it's the warm bodies around me, listening to scripture, providing a small measure of comfort, short lived as it is. I enter through the eastern door and take my usual seat near the back, where the crack in the stone runs long. I whisper a quiet hello to Thomas the beggar who sits on the floor beside me. Though I've been attending this synagogue for years, I come and go feeling mostly unseen. Unknown. Would anyone notice if I never returned? The leaders pay me no mind. Once, when my pain had become unbearable, I approached Rabbi Ben Simon to ask for prayer. He spoke a quick blessing over me, but no one has asked since that day. They can't be bothered with a woman like me. Settling in I hear the familiar greeting. Shalom, brothers and sisters. Today I will instruct you on how to walk in the way of righteousness, the way of our holy God. As Israelites, we must be set apart from the Gentiles, those dogs who do not follow our laws. We must be careful not only to do what is written, but also what we have received from our fathers. I recognize the voice and groan inwardly. Remember to do no work on the Sabbath, and what is work? You may not spit on the ground lest your spit moves the earth like a plough. You may not carry more milk than can be swallowed in one gulp. Your steps must be measured, no more than two thousand cubits, so that you do not wander into transgression. Let us not be like the common people, those who sit with sinners or worse, eat with them. The Messiah will come for the pure, not the polluted, those who obey every detail of the law. The rabbi's words run together in a monotonous haze as he drones on about the intricacies of the law. Why always the law? Why always another rule to follow, another command to obey? Not those of Adonai, but the additional laws they set up. The weight just keeps increasing. And finally, remember my position as a teacher of the law. I am entrusted with authority. Listen to what I teach and do as I say, for I speak from Moses' seat. Now go, pray loudly, fast regularly, and walk uprightly. Is this really what the Lord commands of us? Is this what he delights in? Go, walk uprightly, they say. Maybe they know their words are like knives to my soul. For all their talk, they've proved powerless to help me walk uprightly. I'm surprised they still allow me to enter the synagogue. If they only knew the nightmares I deal with, the chains that bind me, my bent body is a reflection of my crooked soul. Oh how I want to be loosed. How many times have I cried out to Adonai curled on my bed, tears streaming? I must try harder. It is surely my wickedness that has bound me up. I'm brought back to the present as a new voice speaks, a voice I have heard only once or twice out in the courtyard. I recognize it as belonging to Jesus of Nazareth. Immediately I'm drawn in by his bold yet compassionate words. His voice carries both weight and warmth. I sit entranced, eyes on the floor, wondering what face goes with a voice like this. He unrolls the scroll of Moses and begins to read from Leviticus. He's so different from the others. Even as he reads the law, his words are like honey. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. When he speaks of Sabbath, it sounds more like a gift to be received rather than a burden to bear. He does not add to the words of Moses, but brings out their beauty. If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you reins in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. His voice is clear and strong, yet tender and perfectly paced. This is a teacher I can listen to. I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you, and I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves, and I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you walk erect. As he rolls up the scroll, his last few words echo in my mind. I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. If only I could experience that kind of freedom. I wait for the next speaker to begin, but a hush has fallen over the synagogue. The familiar cadence of our gathering has stopped. Everyone seems to be waiting, watching. Then Jesus' voice breaks the silence. Mara of Bethany, come forward. My heart lurches. Jesus is calling my name. We've never met. How does he even know who I am? I stand and a sea of people part as I move forward, bent low, eyes on the ground as always. I make my way toward the front, heart pounding. Will he make an example of me? He doesn't seem like the type of teacher who would shame me, but still, what could he want with me? I stop when I get to the front of the room. Jesus calls out strong and true. Woman, you are set free from your infirmity. He places a warm, powerful hand on my back, and in an instant the chains drop, the yoke falls, the oppression ends. My crooked back bent for eighteen long years, my muscles fastened like prison bars are released. I stand upright and find myself face to face with Jesus. Praise bursts from the deepest part of my soul. Glory to God. I can't help but lift my hands high. I'm free. The chains that bound me have been removed. My joy is contagious, and others begin to shout praises to God. People are laughing, crying, shaking one another. Did you see that? Words ripple like waves through the crowd. I look around, connecting faces to voices I've known for years. I search out the synagogue leader. Sure he will be filled with praise. But instead of delight, his eyes are hard, angry. He looks over my upright figure and his face contorts with fury. He motions toward me and bellows to the crowd, There are six days for work to be done, so come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath. The rejoicing falls silent. Immediately Jesus responds with fire in his eyes. You hypocrites, he shouts, doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? There it is. I'm exposed and set free all at once. No more hiding, no more crouching, no more skulking in the back door. Yes, I was bound by Satan, the enemy of my soul and body. For eighteen long years I was oppressed and held down, but now with my chains on the ground I stand as a daughter of Abraham. Those who tried to shame me have themselves been shamed. Again, the crowd erupts in praise. They hug me with tears in their eyes, and we lift our voices to the Lord. In his might, he has delivered me. The enemy who came to steal, kill, and destroy has claimed one less victim. I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. This Sabbath I leave the synagogue standing tall, not just in body, but in soul. I walk out past the wall where I used to sit, where the crack in the stone runs long. Epilogue At last I have found my sisterhood. Mary, Joanna, Susanna, and others have enfolded me into their community. Together we travel with Jesus, proclaiming his good news. How can we do otherwise? We who were once lost have been found. We who were bound have been set free. We who lived in the margins have been welcomed into a beautiful belonging. We are seen. As always, I want to encourage you to go to the scripture and read that story for yourself. You'll find it in Luke 13, verses 10 to 17. There are so many beautiful lessons from this woman's story, but I'm gonna bring out just a few of them. One of the first things we notice about this woman is that her body was a reflection of what was going on in her soul. It says that she was bent over or bent double and could not straighten herself. And if you read different translations, some of them say she had a disabling spirit or an evil spirit or a spirit of infirmity. We don't know exactly what that means, but we do know that it was an evil spirit because when Jesus heals her, he said, This woman who has been bound by Satan for 18 years. And as you know, I love to nerd out over neuroscience and I love the brain, body, mind connection. And I think this story shows us that what is happening in our souls is often reflected in our bodies. As I was studying to write this chapter and looking through different commentaries, I came across this sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon back in 1878, and he said this. He must have bound her very cunningly to make the knot hold all that time. Satan had not possessed her, but he had fallen upon her once upon a time eighteen years before, and bound her up as men tie a beast in its stable, and she had not been able to get free all that while. The devil can tie in a moment, a knot which you and I cannot unloose in eighteen years. I think in our culture we're really quick to compartmentalize our lives. We hear Jesus say, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength, and we put ourselves into these little compartments. But God created us as holistic beings. And so what happens in our hearts and in our souls affects our bodies. What happens to our bodies affects our emotions. And so often our first MO is to run to a doctor, to run to get help from even if it's a naturopath or a chiropractor. And it just makes me wonder if maybe our first stop should be pausing to pray, to come to God with whatever is happening in our bodies and our emotions, if coming to him first might better serve us. I've been reading through the Bible chronologically and I've just, I'm still in, you know, the early, maybe Leviticus or somewhere like that. And it's interesting because God is talking about all these different ailments. You know, if somebody has a hair that's turning white, or if somebody has, you know, a sore, send them to the priest, the priest, the priest. And I thought it was so interesting that God didn't say send them to the doctor. There were doctors in those times, but he sent them first and foremost to the person who would connect them with God. And I just find that really interesting. And it has challenged me when I think about, you know, physical struggles and physical problems to first and foremost go to the Lord and ask him for healing and ask him for wisdom, for insight of maybe where is this coming from? What is the origin? Now, this woman's issue was a spiritual issue. Satan had bound her. There was an evil spirit that had tied up her soul and her body. And it wasn't too hard for Jesus. In an instant, he was able to straighten her up. He was able to set her free. One thing I take away from that is whatever it is, whatever has bound us up, whatever has us tied in knots physically, spiritually, emotionally, Jesus has the power to bring immediate healing. That doesn't mean he always will, but he can if he chooses to. I think one of the most important things that we learn from this woman's story is the purpose of Sabbath. So in scripture, you see over and over, I think there are seven times where in the gospels, Jesus intentionally heals someone on the Sabbath. And just as in this story, the religious leaders are always up in arms. They're always, you know, this guy says he was indignant. In other words, he was angry. He was seething that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. It wasn't against God's law to heal on the Sabbath, it was against all their man-made additions to God's law. If you read this story in the original language, and I am not a Greek reader, but I love to go back and look at some of the words in Greek. And if you read this story, there are all these little sections of the story where Jesus does a play on words. So the synagogue leader, when he saw that the woman was healed, he comes out and he says, There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, not on the Sabbath, right? And Jesus says, Ought not this woman to be loosed from her bond, from this bond on the Sabbath? That word ought is the Greek word day. And it means this is necessary. This must happen. So, in other words, the synagogue leader said, You must come be healed on days one through six. Don't be coming for your healing on the Sabbath day. That must not happen. And Jesus takes that same phrase and he turns it around and he said, She must be healed on the Sabbath day. This daughter of Abraham. The synagogue leaders prided themselves on being sons of Abraham. And I love that he points out that this woman, she's on the same playing field as you. She is a daughter of Abraham. She is valuable. She's worthy of healing. There's another play on words a few verses later, where Jesus says, Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to water it? And then he says, Then shouldn't this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day? So both of those phrases, untie your ox or donkey, and set free is the Hebrew word luo. And it means to loose, release, break, destroy. In other words, he's saying, you'll untie your ox, your donkey, you'll set it free to bring it to water on the Sabbath. Shouldn't this woman be set free? Shouldn't we untie her from what has bound her all these years on the Sabbath? Again, he's contrasting the their hypocrisy. They're like, well, yeah, we can take out our ox or our donkey because, you know, we need to water them. But this woman, no, we'll leave her tied up. And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no. This daughter of Abraham is valuable and she needs to be set free. She needs to be cared for more so than your ox or your donkey. I think one of the reasons this woman's story gets lost is because it takes place in the context of a Sabbath healing. And the focus is typically on the fact that the religious leaders were angrier with Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. But also I feel like his intentionality about healing on the Sabbath is what makes her story so powerful. See, God has given us the Sabbath as a gift. It's not just for rest, it's for restoration. I've read a few books on Sabbath, and one of my absolute favorites is Mark Buchanan's The Rest of God, Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath. And he says, I want to convince you in part that setting apart an entire day, one out of seven, for feasting and resting and worship and play is a gift and not a burden. And neglecting the gift too long will make your soul like soil never left fallow, hard and dry and spent. I don't know what your relationship with the Sabbath has been. I don't know if it's been a practice in your life. I know that through the years it has been misused and abused and distorted in all different traditions. Back in Jesus' day, the Pharisees had taken the Sabbath and turned it into this burden, adding all kinds of extra laws and regulations and adding all kinds of things to what God said to make the Sabbath where it became a burden to bear and not a gift to be received. I think of the Puritans who they imagine the Sabbath as we sit in hard-backed benches, we don't go out, we don't do anything. It was this austere, dry practice that people just had to endure and get through. I think in our culture today, the Sabbath is nothing to most people. It's, oh, it's Sunday. Sunday is the new Sabbath, and we use that for sports and we use it to go boating and we use it to go to the beach. And that's kind of what Sabbath, quote unquote, Sabbath is. But Sabbath is a rich and beautiful gift and a command of God that I will be the first to admit I don't get it. I don't observe it the way that I really believe God intended for it to be observed. Observed, but I want to. I long for that. I like my soul craves celebrating Sabbath. And I don't know about you, but for me, and I think for a lot of people in our culture today, it's a challenge. It is really hard for us to stop. Stop working, pause, close your computer, walk away. One of the things that Mark Buchanan says in his book is he says, if you work with your mind, Sabbath with your hands. In other words, if if you're a person who's always thinking and maybe creating and writing, for you, Sabbath might be getting out. And for him, he talks about like chopping logs. For me, it's it's walking on the beach. It's going outside and just being in nature. Sometimes it's baking or making sourdough bread or doing something creative with my hands, like painting. It's like things that bring you life. Or if if you're a person who works with your hands, let's say you're you're a person who does manual labor, he says, for you, maybe Sabbath would be sitting and reading a book, using your mind, doing seduco or something, you know, along that line. That that's just a delight for you, a way for you to get the rest from your typical labor. For me, I struggle with Sabbath because I have a taskmaster that lives in my head. Sometimes I have conversations with the taskmaster, and often I'll do this in my journal rather than just kind of kind of out loud. And I'm gonna share this, it's kind of vulnerable. But I think that some of you can relate to this. I said to the taskmaster, what's it like to be you? He replied, It's exhausting, demanding, but I don't know any other way to live. I hold a whip tightly in my grip. There's so much to do. Don't stand around, be useful. There's work to be done. Relaxing is not an option. Play is a waste of time, and wasting time is the cardinal sin. I do not know rest, and I refuse the Sabbath because I fear not being productive. I aim to keep you productive day and night, doing, working, and striving. Instead of resisting the taskmaster in this conversation, I tr I chose to engage him. I said, Would you like to drop your whip, take a walk in the park, lie down and watch the clouds float by, pick wildflowers, take off your shoes, and walk in the river? You've been working, working, working your whole life. I give you permission to take a break. Do nothing. Rest. Cease striving. Turn your eyes from your tasks, your lists, your demands, and gaze at God, the Creator, the one enthroned in heaven, who's keeping it all together. Let Him run the world. You don't have to do it all. You can release your death grip. It'll take work to pry the whip from your hand, one finger uncurling from the handle at a time. But I'm asking you to lay it down. Sit on the grass beside me. Stare at the sky. Unclench your jaw. Relax your shoulders. Release the tension. Experience the foreign sensation of rest. Will you do that with me today? I went on to ask the taskmaster, how can I unburden you? He replied, Let me tell you my fears. Name them out loud so they lose their power. Of course. I fear being useless, unworthy of love, unproductive, wasting time, wasting my life. I'm learning to respond with compassion to these parts of me. And so I said to the taskmaster, I'm so sorry you feel those things. I wonder where they come from. Do you think they're valid? Taskmaster, I must ask you to stand down. I'm not asking you to leave forever. I know you can't because you're part of me. And sometimes I need your help when a deadline looms close, but maybe instead of a whip, you could simply remind me. Leave me a note or tap me on the shoulder. Perhaps you could let go of your demands and expectations. Instead of shouting for more, you can learn to say, It is enough. There's a passage in Isaiah where God is addressing the people of Israel. Isaiah 30, 15, he says, This is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says only in returning to me and resting you will be saved. In quietness and trust is your strength. But you would have none of it. Returning rest, quietness, trust. That's where you find your strength. God is inviting us to slow down, to cease striving. But most of us say, no, I won't have it. The taskmaster inside of us says, There's work to be done. You haven't finished yet. And yet, that's exactly what Sabbath is about. It's not about being rewarded because we finished our job. It's taking a break right in the middle of it when the work isn't finished yet. Listen to this invitation from Jesus that I think you and I can relate to, but also the people in Jesus' day. He said to them, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Jesus is inviting the weary and burdened, those of us who have a taskmaster in our head that's constantly shouting at us for more and more and more. He's saying, Come to me. He's not saying, Come to this list of rules, not saying go to church. He's saying, Come to me and I will rest you. And then he immediately says something that doesn't quite sound like rest because he says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. So a yoke was a this big wooden beam that they would lay across the shoulders of a beast of burden. So we're thinking, okay, Jesus, you just invited me to rest, and then you said, put this yoke on. And the reason he was saying that is because these people were already under a heavy yoke. They were under the oppression of the religious leaders whose mantra was just like the taskmasters, more work, more rules, more ties, whatever you're doing, it's not enough. And Jesus was inviting them to exchange that heavy yoke for his easy yoke, for his light burden. I can't help but connect this invitation of Jesus to this healing on the Sabbath. Jesus is saying, Come to me, set aside the oppression of the taskmaster, to those in his circle, he was saying, set aside the oppression of the religious leaders and come to me. Learn a new way of being. Sabbath offers more than rest, it offers restoration. It's the knitting back together of what has been torn, the mending of what has been broken, and the reorienting of our hearts around the goodness of God. Sabbath is the margin that our hearts are missing. It is a good gift. I'm gonna link a couple books that have really challenged me, that have helped me in so many ways to start unpacking and understanding what it would look like to celebrate the Sabbath in my own life. And I am sure that they would be an encouragement to you. So I'm gonna link those in the show notes. There's so many lessons from this woman, but there's just one more that I want to point out. And it's something that I think a lot of people can relate to, and that is the woundedness that this woman must have felt in the religious setting where she was. So she was in the synagogue where people all around her were worshiping God. I'm putting quotes around that. And when Jesus did something so beautiful and miraculous and healing and freeing in her life, instead of being celebrated, the religious elite around her, they were angry, they were furious, they were condemning Jesus for bringing her healing. That synagogue leader would just as soon have left her bound up, but that does not reflect. That's in direct opposition to the heart of Jesus. I think one of the lessons we can learn from this story is that even if we have been wounded or hurt in church by a religious leader, that is not a reflection of the heart of Jesus. Jesus is for our healing, he is for our restoration, he's for our freedom. And it's really common today to see people walking away from the church, walking away from their faith. And I want to encourage you, if if you've been tempted to do that, if you've been hurt by a religious person in your life, to take your eyes off of that person and put them on the person of Jesus. Put them on who Jesus is. Maybe spend the next few weeks reading through the gospels, just observing who Jesus is and how he treated people. Because we are never called to follow humans. We're never called to embrace systems. We are called into a relationship with God. Jesus said, Come to me. All through scripture, God is inviting us into relationship with himself. So I want to plead with you not to forsake God, not to turn your back on God if you've been hurt by people. And maybe you need to find a different place of worship. Maybe you need to heal relationships or mend things, or maybe you need to walk away and find a safe place where you can experience that. But there are churches out there. If you're in the St. Pete area, I invite you to come to our church, Fifth Avenue Baptist, and experience a community where people love one another and care for one another and strive to emulate Jesus. This is just a total side note, but I just have to say one of the things I love so much about our church is that we are a church where people who are marginalized are welcome. When you walk into our church, you're gonna see people that maybe wouldn't be welcome in other places. That's one of the things I love so much about our people is that they have and they reflect the heart of Jesus. Okay, I know most of you probably don't live in St. Pete and can't visit our church, but I just thought I'd throw that little plug in there anyway. So wherever you are, I want to encourage you. And if you're at the place where you're like, I'm not ready for that, I don't want to push that on you. I do want to say, even if you never set foot in a church again, will you press into the heart of Jesus? Will you come to a place where you're open to knowing God and being seen by him, being known by him, being loved by him, letting him show you how he sees you. Not how other people see you, but how he sees you as a beautiful, valuable child of his. Okay, so we could probably keep going and pull out more from this woman's story, but I want to wrap this episode up. I want to thank you if you have been listening to the scene series. It's been a long one. I think we started last August and it is still going. And just to give you a little update, um, if you're listening in real time, I just sent the first draft of my manuscript to the editor, and so we are now beginning the editing process, and within a few months, hopefully by mid to late summer, we will have scene in our hands, and I am so excited about that. If that's something you're interested in, I'm gonna put a little link in the show notes, and you can sign up for my scene launch team. Basically, it's just cheerleaders to kind of cheer on this book and welcome it when it comes into the world. But the series isn't over yet. We still have a few more episodes with some guests. We have another psalm coming up, and we will be doing a scene series wrap-up. But thank you, thank you for being here with me through this series. It has been a joy to explore the lives of these women, these people in scripture that would have been overlooked, undervalued, and yet God, He pursues these women with a heart of compassion and tenderness. He seeks them out. He says, I see you, I know you, and I love you. Thanks for hanging out with me today on Beauty and the Brokenness. To find anything I mentioned on the episode, go to TeresaWiting.com slash episode dash one four seven to find all the show notes. In closing, I want to leave you with this prayer from number six, twenty four. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.