[Gal. 6:11–18; Luke 13:10–17]

In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is a little hard for us to appreciate what’s going on with this controversy over the Sabbath.

It seems a bit strange to our American ears, this whole dispute over what is allowed and what is not allowed on the Sabbath—because, you know, we’re Americans! We’re allowed everything. What difference is one day from the next?

Maybe we can recall that there are, of course, Orthodox Jews, who actually are strictly keeping the Sabbath. And you’ve seen them walking by the side of the road to their synagogue on the Sabbath.

Or perhaps we remember our forebears, our forefathers, our foremothers in the faith, who would keep the Lord’s Day with real seriousness of purpose. They wouldn’t do all sorts of things and be sure about going to the church on Sunday and holy days.

But even so, with all sincerity, it is difficult to do that in our own time. And it is often a real demand that, if you want to remain employed, you have to show up on a Sunday. Or this might be the one time that you actually have a moment to get some chores done around the house. Or you want to do a family outing. It’s really tempting, right?

You can really be tempted to say, “God, I know that You are important, I know that Your day is important. But I just don’t honestly have the time.” What do you do?

And I’m not even getting into the whole thing with sports on Sundays—don't get me started on kids’ sports!

But in Jesus’ day, the Sabbath was remembered, it was indeed important for people. And it was kept in remembrance of the first Saturday, the first Sabbath. How God in six days created all things, and on the seventh day He rested from all His works. And He commanded Moses, He commanded the people, to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. And so in Jesus’ day, that was something that people would do: keep the Sabbath day holy.

But how? That’s the question. How to keep the Sabbath holy?

You see, this is where we get to this thing that can puzzle us as we are reading through the Gospel, or listening to the Gospels on Sundays: how often Jesus is butting heads quite directly—this is not something where he says, “Well, there are two ways to think about this….” No! This is an area where Jesus goes head-to-head with the Pharisees and other leaders in the Jewish community, because they are insisting that what he is doing is breaking the Sabbath. And the people coming to him—believing that he is the Christ, the chosen one of God, come to redeem His people—that what they are doing is breaking the Sabbath.

But in all this, the Lord did not say, “Don’t keep the Sabbath. It’s not important.”

Rather, what He says is “Your vision is too narrow. Your understanding of what it means to keep the Sabbath holy is too confined. You’ve narrowed it so much that you’re leaving out the whole point, what this is all for.”

Why did God create the world in the first place and why did He create us? He did not create us to burden and constrain us. He created us that we would be free to love Him and to share our lives with Him.

And we, in this broken and suffering and divided world, are not free. We are bound in sin and corruption and death.

And the Lord came—this is why he came. We’re getting ready to celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus and it is not for sentimentality, it is not to say, “O, how lovely is that little Christ child!”

He came into this world, born of the Virgin Mary. In order to set us free.

Just like God sent Moses to His people in Egypt, in slavery. Saying to the tyrant there, Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” That is what Jesus has come as the Christ to do: He has come to set His people free, and to heal them of all their infirmities, to restore them to that true creation—that work that God did in the very beginning. That is what it’s all for: so that we can live with God.

And that of course is what is accomplished on the greatest Sabbath of them all. On Great and Holy Saturday, after our Lord said, “It is finished”—He had completed all His work going into the cross to overcome the slavery of sin and death. To put death to death. He then rested in the tomb on the Sabbath Day, from that great work. 

But in so doing, He shattered Hades itself, He broke those prison bars and opened those gates, so they could never be shut again. So that death is no longer an end to life and the crushing of our hopes. But instead it has been made into the pathway that leads to life with God, that is our hope.

That’s what it’s all about. That’s what it’s all for.

And so when He comes to this group, as He does in the Gospel today, and this woman comes to Him, “bound by Satan,” as Jesus puts it for 18 whole years. Finding nothing else that helps her. There she is, bent over so she cannot stand up straight. 

Of course, this is just the picture—right before our eyes—the picture of the whole human race, bent over under this crushing weight of sin and death. And just as God has compassion from His heavenly throne, and sets all His glory aside, and descends to live among us, to set us free from all our burdens—

So in this particular case, He has compassion and does what is necessary to free her for her particular weight, of her particular infirmity that she is suffering. To let her stand upright for the first time in 18 years. And be able to, with a free heart, a light heart, and a straightened body, to be able to glorify God.

And so when we see that then we can sort of see how these very conscientious Pharisees and other leaders in the synagogues and the Jewish community in general were missing the point, by getting angry about this healing—because this healing is a sign, this particular healing we hear about today, is a sign of the healing that all of us need—that’s the Gospel! 

That’s why Jesus is here. That’s why we are gathered here this day, to celebrate and worship God, and to remember everything that He has done for us.

That we can draw near in our infirmity and receive the healing we need.

Today, we are being invited to draw near to God and to receive from Him the healing that we need, and that Sabbath rest that is ours to claim, that we so desperately need. That rest in God, that peace that passes understanding. That joy in His presence that belongs to us. That we so often miss out on, not so much because we reject it, but because we are doing things that make it impossible for us to receive His Sabbath rest.

And so what the whole work of our life, what we need to do—Jesus our God has done everything necessary for us to be free, to be restored, to have life in God—all that is required from us, is to respond, to actually draw near and open ourselves to what God has to offer. 

But what do you do? How are we to do this? How do we answer this invitation?

Well, the first thing that we should be doing is avoid obstacles, and stop ourselves from setting obstacles in the path of other people. You know, that’s the problem with the Pharisees, as conscientious as they are, as faithfully reading the scriptures and obeying what they see there: they are setting obstacles in the paths of others that want to draw near to their Savior. 

Brothers and sisters, any way that we find ourselves doing that to other people, we need to stop that right away. Any time that we find find ourselves blocking someone else from receiving the healing and they need, that needs to stop. 

And then, of course, the next step is to actually choose to draw near, to make God the first priority in our life, whatever the cost, to realize this is actually the most important thing in our life. There is no other person, no other institution, no other good in this world that is going to give us what we truly need, if we do not seek God first and His righteousness and His Kingdom. If we don’t do that, then all the other things that seem so important in our life, won’t amount to a hill of beans in the end. 

So we need to actually practice doing this, drawing near in our life to God, sitting at Jesus’ feet, entering into the presence of God, who is everywhere. filling all things, being with Him. Being truly ourselves, here, in the presence of the God, that’s really more important. He's already there—it’s ourselves being present, stopping the busyness of our worldly activities—our desperate plans, our imaginations and ambitions—stilling ourselves and actually recognizing that God is with us. And we need to do that every week, every day, every hour, and, if we can, every moment. That's what we are meant to do, that's what it really means to be human. 

To be human is to be with God. That’s what we are made to be, made to do. 

And that’s hard to do. The whole orientation of this world is going in the other direction. It’s all set to put other things first and God last. But we’ve been given this season right now—the one that we’re in, leading up to Christmas—this Advent season is given to us as an opportunity to put these things into practice, to actually begin to do it. 

We have this invitation right now to get ready for the joyful feast that is to come. And so right now we are we are given ways, we are being reminded, week by week, day by day, if we are paying attention. We are being reminded of the burdens that are weighing on us now, the particular troubles that are on my shoulders and your shoulders that are preventing us from standing upright and receiving the blessings that are our inheritance, if only our hearts and our hands are open to receive them. 

And at the same time, we are given these opportunities to open our eyes to the sorrows of the neighbor next to us, the person who's in trouble right down the block, on the other side of the office, in our neighborhood, in our families. Wherever they might be, those people are given to us as an opportunity for us to recognize that this person is also someone that our God loves and shows compassion upon. And what He wants to do is show that love, that compassion, through you, that you can be the vessel of God’s mercy and compassion and healing. If you want to cooperate, if you want to actually want to be His servant and a child of God, imitating God and his love and his mercy in our daily life, that’s what we're invited to begin to practice in this Advent season. 

We’ve heard this message last week in the readings, and we hear it again today. At the beginning of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he says to them, “Walk worthy of your calling in boldness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.” Brothers and sisters, those few sentences, those few words—“Walk worthy of your calling”—that’s what should be ringing in our hearts on this Lord’s Day, what we’re trying to fulfill. And every Lord’s Day that is to come, in fact: this is the way that we should walk every day of our life. Amen.