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01.04.09

2nd Sunday After Christmas

GETTING BENT OUT OF SHAPE

ISAIAH 42:5-9; LUKE 13:10-17

The Burdens We Carry

Stress-related Illness

Asthma, obesity, hypertension and heart disease, insomnia, migraines, ulcers and other gastrointestinal disorders, depression and bi-polar disorder, arthritis, diabetes, and cancer

All of these are extremely common illnesses among Americans
While all of these ailments manifest themselves with different symptoms and afflict different parts of the body, each of these ailments have one factor in common
They are all stress-related illnesses

While we Americans are the most affluent people on earth, we are also among the unhealthiest people on earth

Affluence ought to influence healthier living, but in our case it doesn’t
Statistics show that people living in less developed nations are often healthier and live longer than we do here in the United States
A lot of it has to do with lifestyle; a lot of it has to do with the choices we make

Our affluence gives us the ability to make a lot more choices that other people don’t have the ability to make

Unfortunately, many of the choices we make are choices that influence us negatively rather than positively
We can choose to eat a healthy diet, yet we often opt for fast food laden with fat and calories
We can choose to exercise on a regular basis; instead we choose to be couch potatoes
We can choose to take time to relax and unwind or to be workaholics; we choose to be workaholics because we believe that the more money we earn, the more we’ll be able to enjoy life
We can choose to forgive or not to forgive, and often we choose not to forgive, allowing anger and resentment to fester inside us
We can choose to worry or we can choose to trust God; often we choose to worry because we believe that we are better able to deal with our problems than God is

Living Life Under Stress

The choices we make influence the level of stress we live under

The level of stress we choose to live under influences our overall health, either positively or negatively
God designed us to be healthy and to enjoy this life God has given to us
God designed us to trust him, to let him take care of our needs so we wouldn’t have to worry
Yet, so often we choose to tackle life on our own terms
When we hear Jesus say, “Do not worry about your life,” we react by thinking that Jesus must be crazy

When Jesus spoke those words, life was a lot more simple
People back then had a lot less to worry about
That might have been good advice for people in his day, but it’s not possible to live today without worry
We have so many more things to worry about

The fact of the matter is that we allow ourselves to get bent out of shape about so many things

We allow unhealthy thoughts and feelings to build up inside us
We are burdened by worry about finances and family
We are burdened by fear of terrorism, failure, illness, and death
We are burdened by the pressure to succeed, to be loved and accepted
We are burdened by sin, by guilt, by anger, by an unforgiving spirit
These are heavy burdens to bear, and the effect of those burdens is that they weigh us down, they bend us out of shape, they rob us of the strength we need to really live, and they steal from us the ability to stand tall and to face life with faith and confidence

Releasing Our Burdens

The Woman in the Synagogue

Luke tells the story of a woman that Jesus healed in the synagogue one Sabbath day

This woman was bent over and couldn’t straighten up, and she lived that way for eighteen years
But there’s something about this healing that was different from the other healing miracles Jesus performed
On many occasions, Jesus restored sight to the blind and unstopped the ears of the deaf
He healed the skin of lepers, restored strength to limbs afflicted with paralysis, and even stopped the flow of blood in a woman who was hemorrhaging
These were all great miracles indeed, yet all these afflictions stemmed directly from physical causes
That was not the case with this women in the synagogue

This healing was different because this woman’s illness wasn’t the result of a physical problem

While she was manifesting physical symptoms, the cause of her affliction was spiritual
Notice that Luke makes the point to tell us that “a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years.”
In modern medical terminology, we would call this a psychosomatic disorder
A psychosomatic disorder is an actual physical ailment that has no physical cause—it’s caused by a condition of the mind
Treatment of a psychosomatic disorder as a physical ailment is ineffective since the ailment has no physical cause
Healing comes only when the attitude of the mind that is causing the ailment is addressed and changed

This must have been the case for this woman in the synagogue

She was stressed out over something and her worry, her guilt, her fear had crippled her
Perhaps it was something she had done eighteen years before that caused her such shame that she was afraid to show her face
Perhaps it was a burden of grief over the loss of a loved one that weighed her down, or an attitude of rejection by her family and neighbors
Whatever it was, it affected her physically, caused her to get bent out of shape, and robbed her of the ability to really live

On this day in the synagogue, this woman was given a chance to live again

Jesus called her forward, laid his hands upon her and released her from her burden
He gave her permission to let go of her burden, to let go of whatever it was in her past that was weighing her down
Through his public act of forgiveness, he enabled her to forgive herself, removing her guilt and shame, and allowing her to face life with her head held high, to stand tall as a beloved child of God
In the eyes of Jesus, her past was unimportant—what was important was her future
After suffering the crippling effects of her burden for eighteen years, she needed to be set free so she could live again, and that’s exactly what Jesus did for her

The attitude of the synagogue ruler is indicative of how heavy the burden was that she had been carrying for all those years

Whatever it was, she must have been the victim of public disgrace
In a culture where all sickness was viewed as the judgment of God for sin, the synagogue ruler found no room for forgiveness
To forgive someone was to interfere with the judgment of God
That’s why he became so indignant with Jesus for healing her on the Sabbath
Yet, Jesus lifts up the value God places on all human life
Just as an ox or a donkey must be set free on the Sabbath to be watered, even more so a child of Abraham deserves to be set free of whatever is keeping her bound

Straighten Up and Live

How unfortunate it is that we spend so much of our life bent out of shape over things we cannot control

We spend an inordinate amount of time and energy worrying over these kinds of things
How often are we plagued by the “what if’s” of life—worrying about things that may be possible, but are not very probable
It’s highly unlikely that most of the “what if’s” we worry about will ever happen, so it’s futile to waste so much time and energy on them and allow all that worry to rob us of the joy of living

We spend so much of our life bent out of shape over things that really aren’t all that important

We get bent out of shape over what other people think about us
We get bent out of shape when we don’t get our own way
We get bent out of shape when people disagree with us
We get bent out of shape when life doesn’t go the way we want it
All of these things that we get bent out of shape over influence the health of our body and the quality of life we are able to live

The Good News of the gospel and the lesson of this story is that we don’t have to live this way

We don’t have to live our life burdened by worry or fear or anger or resentment
We don’t have to be burdened by the mistakes of our past
Instead of living bent out of shape, we can stand tall and live life with confidence because we know that God loves us and Jesus died to save us
On that day in the synagogue, Jesus gave that woman permission to let go of her past
His gentle touch and kind words conveyed to her God’s love and grace and forgiveness
She could choose to accept it or she could choose to continue to live as she had for the past eighteen years
She chose to be set free, and with that choice she was given a new start in life

Jesus offers the same choice to us

We can choose to be bent out of shape or we can choose to let go of the things that burden us
It’s healthier to let go than to carry the burdens of worry, anger, resentment and fear
How we feel about things, how we react to certain situations and people are choices we make
No one makes us feel the way we feel
We can choose to be angry or we can choose to forgive
We can choose to be sad or we can choose to be happy
We can choose to hate or we can choose to love
We can choose to be bent out of shape or we can choose to stand tall and live life with faith and confidence

We are in the early days of a new year, and with the new year comes new beginnings

The old year has gone and a new year has come
What we do with it is up to us
This cycle of life reminds us of the promise of God spoken through Isaiah: “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare.”
Our God is the God of newness—our God is the God of second chances
We can be free of everything that binds us
We can lay aside the burdens we’ve been carrying
God will take hold of our hand and lead us along the path to new life

The choice is up to us

We can choose to be bent out of shape or we can choose to stand tall
We can choose to cling to our old actions and attitudes or we can choose to embrace something new

God offers new life and a new way, but what you choose it