Luke 13.10-17
Sing “If you’re happy and you know it” (or some other happy song)
That’s a really happy song..
I’m going to tell you about a woman who didn’t feel like singing at all. She was very unhappy because she was ill.
She had a disease in her back. Gradually she had got more and more bent over. Her back hurt, and she couldn’t stand up straight. When she walked along she couldn’t look ahead of her.
It made it very difficult to do ordinary things – just talking to people was hard. And she had been like that for eighteen years.
Every week, though, she went to the synagogue in her town to pray to God on Saturday, because that was the Sabbath day, the day when God had told her people that they should rest and worship. They weren’t to go to work on that day, or to school. It was just a day for resting, for gathering together to pray.
It was hard for her, because she couldn’t stand up straight to talk to her friends. When they sang joyful songs, she just felt sad.
One Sabbath day she went to the synagogue and found that there was a special visitor there, a preacher called Jesus. She had heard of Jesus. She knew he told good stories and was kind to people, always wanting to help them. She wished someone could help her, but she didn’t think he would notice her, and she didn’t like to make a fuss.
She listened to Jesus talking to everyone, telling them about God, and then suddenly he stopped. She wondered what had happened, but she couldn’t stand up straight to see. Then she heard a voice, “Woman, you are well again, you are healed”. She heard him moving through the crowd, and she wondered who he was talking to. Then, there he was, right in front of her. He touched her and told her again that she was healed, and gradually she started to straighten her back, till she was standing up straight and tall.
It was wonderful! She could see everything around her. She could see Jesus. She was so happy that she started to sing…
Begin to sing “If you’re happy and you know it”
But then the leader of the synagogue came rushing over. He was an important man. It was his job to make sure people behaved as they ought to in the synagogue. “What’s all this?” he demanded. “Don’t you know it is the Sabbath?” he said to Jesus. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t be working today? Healing people is work! You shouldn’t be doing it! It’s against the rules!”
The woman stopped singing. What was Jesus going to do?
“Look,” said Jesus. “This is a wonderful thing that has happened here. Never mind if it is the Sabbath. We should all be happy that this woman is better again. Surely God wants people to be well and happy – it can’t be wrong to heal people at any time.”
The leader of the synagogue couldn’t think of anything to say. Perhaps he was jealous of Jesus. Perhaps he just thought rules were more important than people. But he knew that Jesus was right, so he didn’t say anything.
But the woman, and all the crowd around her knew what they thought. They thought it was a wonderful day, because she was better again after so long, and no one was going to stop them from singing…
Sing “If you’re happy and you know it”
To think about: Sometimes it is hard to be happy when someone else does something really well or has something really good happen to them, especially if it someone we don’t get on with. Why do you think that is? (We might feel jealous or that it isn’t fair.)
Pray that God will help us to be as happy when something good happens to someone else as we would be if it happened to us.
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