“Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.’” - Luke 13:10-14
A paralytic who could not walk, a man blind from birth who could not see, a man engaged in a disreputable profession who could not find his way out, a man imprisoned among the tombs, a woman with a twelve-year hemorrhage, an epileptic child, a man dead for four days, and here a woman bent over by illness and a man bent over by responsibilities. The stories are many. Bound by physical, spiritual, and social forces, these people need to be set free. They need to be unbound and unburdened.
The scriptures give us so many of these stories because this is the human condition. Our mortal bodies and our built world conspire to bind and burden us. And then what? And then we are not free to be playful, loving, grateful and generous children of God. As is said, hurt people hurt people. Sick people make others sick.
Read again the passage above from Luke. What burdens you? Is it a health concern? Maybe it is the many responsibilities you shoulder. Some may be burdened by memories of their past or lamentations over their current family relations. For others, it is an uncertain future that weights them down.
Jesus comes to his people to set them free from want, from guilt and shame, and from what be the worst thing - fear of dying in this life and eternal death in the next. He comes to set us free from worry and hoarding and selfishness and all those other ways of being that are aspects of our burdens. He sets us free from guilt and shame. He sets us free from the need to prove ourselves over and against those who disapprove.
Whatever it is that burdens you, Jesus wants to unburden you of that. He says that you are enough because he is more than enough. He says that you have done enough because he has done it all. He says that you are healed because he has made all things new. He is yours and you are his and he bids you to come and learn from him that he is the good and gentle shepherd who takes all your burdens. Believe in it, trust in it, trust his word to you, and your burden will be lightened.
Your Healing Prayer Ministry is inviting you into a time of laying down your burdens by offering them up to God as part of your Sunday offering. In the coming weeks, you will find a basket in the aisle and slips of paper you may use to anonymously write down your burden and place it in the basket. We will offer those up with our weekly collection and the Healing Prayer Ministry will pray over them at their weekly Soaking Prayer service.
Jesus says “Come to me, you who are burdened by many things.” I bid you share your burdens and let us pray for you.
Fr. Bill+