Perspective: A Day to Celebrate Freedom

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A Day to Celebrate Freedom

Then Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made to serve us; we weren't made to serve the Sabbath."

Mark 2:27 (The Message)

Give me words, I'll misuse them
Obligations, I'll misplace them
'Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free

From "More Like Falling in Love" by Jason Gray

In the Gospel of Luke, we read that, on one Sabbath day, while Jesus is teaching in a synagogue, He spots a woman in the congregation who has been hunched over for many years.  He says to her, "Woman, you are set free from your sickness."  Immediately, the woman straightens up and begins to praise God.¹

Not everyone in the congregation is happy about the miracle that has just taken place in their midst.  The leader of the synagogue stands up and addresses the entire congregation, saying, "There are six days during which work is permitted.  Come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath day."²

Jesus then addresses His critics, saying, "Hypocrites!  Don't each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from its stall and lead it out to get a drink?  Then isn't it necessary that this woman, a daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for eighteen long years, be set free from her bondage on the Sabbath day?"³

This story is one of several stories in the Gospels that highlight the tension that sometimes exists between the "letter of the law" and the "spirit of the law."

The leader of the synagogue, who finds Jesus' healing someone on the Sabbath day problematic, references one of the Ten Commandments when he addresses the congregation.  It reads,

Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy.  Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  Do not do any work on it - not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you.  Because the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day.  That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.⁴

Acts of healing are considered work, so, according to the letter of the law, they are forbidden on the Sabbath day, as long as they are not necessary to save a person's life.⁵

Jesus, on the other hand, repeatedly speaks of freedom.  First, when He heals the woman in the synagogue, He tells her that she is "set free" from her ailment.  Next, when Jesus addresses His critics, He reminds them that, even though work is forbidden on the Sabbath day, they still "untie" their animals and take them to get water to drink on the Sabbath day.  Finally, He suggests that it is only fitting that the woman be "set free from her bondage" on the Sabbath day.

While the leader of the synagogue was concerned about his congregation's observance of the Sabbath day, Jesus kept in mind why His people were commanded to observe the Sabbath day in the first place.  The ancient Israelites received the Ten Commandments, including the commandment to "remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy," while they were camped at the foot of Mount Sinai.  Months earlier, while they were slaves in Egypt, they had no day of rest, and merely asking for a break was rewarded with a greater workload.⁶  The Sabbath day was a gift from God to the Israelites to ensure that they do not exploit each other for labor as a they were exploited in Egypt.

Jesus considers the Sabbath day to be a day to celebrate freedom from oppression, so to Him it is the most appropriate day of the week to set the woman free from the ailment that has oppressed her for many years.  If the woman had been denied healing on the Sabbath day, she would have been forced to suffer the oppression of her ailment for another day.

When God gave the Ten Commandments to the ancient Israelites, God said, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."⁷  God is to be known as liberator, for God liberated the people of Israel from the oppression of slavery and then liberated all of humanity from the oppression of sin and death through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.  Interestingly, when Jesus speaks of the ailment of the woman in the synagogue, He says that she had been "bound by Satan for eighteen long years."  If God is liberator, then oppression of any kind is of the enemy.

Religious rules, like the commandment to observe the Sabbath day, are meant to protect people.  When we lose sight of this truth, the way we apply or enforce our rules can actually become oppressive.  Our God is liberator, so we must never practice our religion in any way that is oppressive.


Notes:

1. Luke 13:10-13 (CEB)
2. Luke 13:14 (CEB)
3. Luke 13:15-17 (CEB)
4. Exodus 20:8-11 (CEB)
5. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Luke.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  p. 211
6. Exodus 5:1-9
7. Exodus 20:2 (CEB)

The Woman with an Infirmity of Eighteen Years was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.