I wonder how much tension filled the synagogue when this event happened. I also wonder what Jesus was teaching about and when he stopped teaching, were the listeners mad. We don’t know what he was teaching but it does seem that Jesus feels healing this woman is more important than his sermon. Jesus stops, calls her over, and heals her. I wonder if she was a regular attendee and the usuals just overlooked her or if this was her first visit. I like to think that she was there on a very regular basis and Jesus is calling out the crowds for overlooking her. I wonder if she felt like she needed to be set free. Did she feel like she had been bound and held back or was she, after 18 years, resolved that this was her situation. Jesus doesn’t just say that she is healed, Jesus physically makes contact with her. I wonder if others avoided her and she hadn’t experienced contact in a number of years. In a world where we can often go without contact, I always think it is important to remember how often Jesus actually touched someone as a part of their healing. 

Now the leader of the synagogue is thrown into the spotlight. I think he is a coward because he doesn’t speak directly to Jesus but to the crowd. What is he so angry about? Did he want the sermon to keep going? Would he prefer this woman continue to be overlooked? Was he really that dedicated to the third commandment? Jesus routinely challenges the way his tradition had missed the mark of what had been originally passed down from God to the people. Here the sabbath is what is misunderstood, and not just misunderstood but a situation of hypocrisy. Jesus loves to call that out. Should Jesus have waited until sundown to heal this woman? I don’t think that’s how God works. Is this healing more for the woman or those who are missing the bigger picture by limiting what they and God can do? Jesus does what leader should’ve done, he talks directly to him, and emphatically proves his point. More than just a crippled woman who is overlooked, she is a daughter of Abraham. I wonder if the leader is angry because Jesus now says she is equal to him.

Parts of this passage that also deserve attention; praising and disabilities. I’m not sure how to work those into a sermon but I think we could and should praise God more and I’m not sure how to walk that fine line related to a person’s affliction. I truly believe that (the) (d)evil is in our world and wreaking havoc but I don’t usually say a person with asthma is bound by satan. And yet, there are things that all of us are longing to be freed from. What are those things and how does God free us?