As was his custom, Jesus went that Sabbath morning to the synagogue for worship. As he was preaching and teaching, he happened to glance toward the fringe of the crowd where he saw a very crippled woman. She was bent over and was unable to stand up straight. When he inquired, Jesus was told the woman had been that way for eighteen years. 

Can you imagine? For nearly two decades this woman spent every waking moment bent double. When she went to the market she did not see the distant green hillsides. She saw only the dirt path in front of her. Instead of the smiling faces of passing children, she saw the tops of dusty sandals. The Gospel writer tells us that the Master was deeply moved by her plight. Jesus called the woman toward him. He laid hands on her and said, "Woman you are set free from your ailment." Immediately the woman stood up straight and she started to praise God.  This irritated one of the leaders of the synagogue. This fellow, we assume a Pharisee, began to criticize Jesus for healing the woman on the Sabbath. "There are six days on which work ought to be done. Healing equates to work and there is no excuse for working on the day set aside for rest and worship." This religious leader believed keeping the law more important than caring for people. 

The man's attitude outraged Jesus. The Master responded that the law permits untying and leading a donkey to water on the Sabbath. Certainly the law should care more for the needs of people than animals. The law should make an exception for unleashing this daughter of Abraham who has been kept from drinking from the waters of abundant life for eighteen years.  I assume that Luke, who remembers this story in his biography of Jesus, recorded the event because of this confrontation with the leader of the synagogue. That disagreement offers the most to learn. However, I want us to focus on that bent-over woman. If we don't look closely, we might assume Jesus healed the woman of a physical disease of the spine like osteoporosis or scoliosis. At first hearing, it does seem that when Jesus laid hands on her and told her to stand up straight, the power of God flowed though our Lord's fingers, into her back, and healed a physical defect. 

While plausible, that is not what Luke says. The seventeenth century translation known as the King James Version (v. 10) says the woman was "bowed by a spirit of infirmity." That suggests a spiritual problem, not a physical one. The more modern New English Bible translates the Greek by saying, she was "possessed by a spirit that had crippled her." J. B. Phillips cuts to the heart of the issue by saying that for eighteen years the woman had been doubled-over for some psychological cause. 

Now what might that be? What psychological problem or spiritual crisis could keep a woman bent over for nearly two decades? A minister posed that question to a group of women in the church. They had some interesting observations. 

"What bent her over?" One woman answered, "Her children. Eighteen years is the minimum sentence for accepting the responsibility of being a parent." What parent has not found raising children demanding? A friend reports that when his first child was born, he was 6 foot 5 inches tall and had coal black hair. By the time his daughter graduated from college he was 5 foot 5 inches tall and had gray hair. Raising children can wear you down and bend you over. 

Another woman in that church group spoke up, "I'll tell you what bent her double. It was her husband. The woman was permanently bowed from bending over picking up after him." Still another woman suggested the woman manifested the results of an unjust society. The burden of being paid only half as much as a man for the same job wore her out. 

Of course, the woman might have been bent over by some affliction other than one peculiar to women. Jesus encountered the woman at the synagogue. Perhaps this woman had a special reason to go to worship. Churches and synagogues function as trash collection depots. People often come to worship to unload the accumulated burden of guilt. Maybe this woman has been stealing money from the office. It began a few years ago when she started "borrowing" a few dollars to keep her going until payday. She always paid it back. One week she didn't return the money and no one noticed. She took a little more and a little more. Now she owes thousands. She got away with it for years. She is terrified. It is only a matter of time until she is caught. The worry and fear have bent her over. 

Maybe she has been having an affair with the man who lives next door. It began innocently enough. A little innocent flirting. Then one thing led to another. Day by day, the weight of the guilt accumulated until now the burden bends her over. 

Maybe some other problem weighs heavily on her. A minister friend reports of attending a convention in a distant city. He left the hotel for a very early morning jog around the downtown. As he jogged down one street he passed a long line of the homeless waiting for a local liquor store to open. At 10:30 that night as he walked back to the hotel, he passed some of those same men. They were passed out drunk on the sidewalk, sleeping off the bender they began at 6:30 in the morning when they bought the day's supply in that liquor store. Maybe that woman is bent over from the weight of her drinking problem. Maybe that woman has a husband who sleeps off his benders on the sidewalks of a Galilean village. Addictions bent people over 2,000 years ago, just as it happens today. 

Maybe the woman is bent over by some problem over which she has no control. Perhaps she is poor. Abject poverty is a burden capable of bending you double. In Jesus' time the poor were legion. Maybe the burden of poverty bent that woman over. Jesus had compassion for the down and out of his time. 

On the other hand, Jesus loved the up and in as well as the down and out. Jesus was a friend to both the rich and the poor. Maybe this woman's problem is not the lack of money. Perhaps she has too much money. Maybe she worries excessively that someone is going to steal from her. Maybe she is worn out buying, cleaning, polishing, insuring, and storing her stuff. 

Frankly, we just do not know the psychological cause of her bowed back. All we know is that it is severe and she has had it for years. For eighteen years, she has had a very unpleasant perspective on life. She has been walking around looking at passing feet. She cannot see the smile on the faces of strangers passing her. She cannot see the green of the meadow. The woman has what might be called "Post-Locust Plague Syndrome." Prior to insecticides, locusts were a terrible problem. Every few years a cloud of grasshoppers descended and ate every green thing. In a farmer's field, they reduced the crop to bare, brown earth. They ate the grass in the lawn and the thistles in the vacant field next door. Locusts are known to land on the clothesline and eat the green spots out of a tablecloth. Locusts scorch the earth and leave no living plant behind. A plague of locusts emotionally and spiritually devastates a community. That is how that bent-over woman must have felt. Some unnamed burden sucked the strength from her. She no longer can stand up straight. 

Jesus has compassion. He calls to her. "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." The woman stands up straight for the first time in eighteen years. 

Please take notice, Jesus did not say,  "I have solved your problem." He did not suggest that he cured the ailment. He says only that he set her free from the burden. I want to suggest that all Jesus did was convince the woman that she could stand up straight under her burden. "Woman, you are set free from your ailment. Stand up straight. You can handle it." The woman believed Jesus. His words gave her the confidence she needed and, sure enough, she stood up straight. Jesus changed her life by helping her believe in herself. I know that doesn't seem like much of a miracle. However, let me remind you of this: Enormous change can be wrought by instilling a little self-confidence in another person. 

Once upon a time there was a man whose life was being destroyed by his compulsion to tear paper. Paper was never safe when this fellow was around. Whenever he found a paper, he tore it into shreds. No one ever invited him to their house because he tore up their newspaper. If he found mail on the kitchen table, he shredded it. When nothing else was available, he tore wallpaper off the walls and shredded it. 

He had no friends. The man was miserable. He attempted many cures. He went to the best physicians in the world. He consulted the finest psychologists. He tried acupuncture and drank herbal tea. Nothing worked. 

One day, he heard of a therapist who specialized in his rare paper-shredding compulsion. When he arrived for his appointment, the therapist walked him around the room twice and whispered something in his ear. When he left, he was cured. A year later, he still had not reverted to his paper tearing behavior. 

The man's life was transformed. His family was elated. One day his mother asked him what that therapist did to cure him when every other treatment had failed. The man replied that the therapist simply walked him around the room twice and kept whispering over and over again into his ear: "Don't tear paper. Don't tear paper. You can do it. Don't tear paper." The man admitted no one had ever said that to him before. "This guy told me I do not have to tear paper."

Could it be that all Jesus really did was say: "Stand up straight. You can do it"? Could it be that Jesus simply said something to the woman that gave her the confidence she needed? The ensuing conversation with the Pharisee hints that that is exactly what happened. The Lord Jesus launches into a discussion of how just a tiny bit of faith can make a profound difference. He speaks of having the faith of a mustard seed. Mustard seeds are no bigger than sesame seeds, yet one can grow into a plant almost the size of tree. Jesus continues by noting how a tiny bit of yeast can transform the bread dough. A little bit of something can make a profound difference.

There is a non-biblical proverb that holds: "God never gives us more than we can handle." That proverb, of course, is objectively false. There are problems that can crush the life out of us. We can be literally crushed to death. While objectively false, it is subjectively very helpful to believe "God never gives us more than we can handle." If you don't believe you can handle what comes your way, you won't. Without faithful confidence, it takes only a tiny problem to bend you over. If, on the other hand, you believe that God will give you all the strength you need to handle whatever comes your way, it is amazing how you can stand up straight and keep on moving.

You may feel as though you have a bad case of Post-Locust Plague Syndrome. It may seem as though you live in a world where all the green of life has been sucked out. If that is how you experience life, listen to Jesus. "Stand up straight. You are set free from your ailment. God is giving you the strength to get past this." Believe that. It makes a difference. 

In the little book of Joel toward the back of the Old Testament is a wonderful promise from God. In Joel 2:27, God says, "I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten." All that time you have been walking around looking at the dust on top of your shoes, God will repay. Man/woman/boy/girl -- stand up straight and walk. You can do it. That is the promise of faith.