Ord Om ordet
Bent Double
Romans 8.12-17: The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness.
Luke 13.10-17:
One sabbath day Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who for eighteen years had been possessed by a spirit that left her enfeebled; she was bent double and quite unable to stand upright. When Jesus saw her he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are rid of your infirmity’ and he laid his hands on her. And at once she straightened up, and she glorified God.
In Romans Paul speaks of creation yearning to be freed from bondage; then of how we, awakened to the things of God, ‘groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies’.
Stirring within us at such times is the spirit that recalls our origin in God, our Father, reminding us that we are called to be coheirs, συγκληρονόμοι, with Christ.
Anyone who has sat at a deathbed knows how obvious it is that we’re made for more than just physical existence. At some point the longing of the spirit must burst boundaries set by our natural frame.
But how easy it is to forget these deep things in the humdrum, often superficial busyness of life.
We may be more like the poor woman bent double than we would like to think. So accustomed may we have become to looking down, scanning the path before us for obstacles, lest we succumb to a fall from which we’d think ourselves unable to rise, that we’ve all but forgotten there’s a heaven up there, with stars shining down on us.
It matters, then, to be attentive to Jesus’s passing; not to hide from his gaze; to receive his will for us, which tells us: ‘Be healed! Rise!’
If we do, we shall like that woman be able, be it a little creakingly, to straighten up, look up and out, and glorify God — not to stand around and dawdle, but to follow our Master and Good Physician, to follow him wherever he goes.
Amen.
‘Bent Woman’ by Milos Todorovic 2018