Who Cares?

“Who Cares?

Luke 13:10-17

David P. Nolte

Fred Craddock was a seminary professor and a preacher, but he liked to attend his home church whenever he could. He was supposed to go out of town one Sunday morning to speak, but it was within driving distance so he went to an early service at his church first. He had to skip out before the service was over, and to save time he took a short-cut through the choir room on his way to the parking lot.

He was surprised to see a woman he knew well, a woman who’d been singing in the choir for years, in the choir room hanging up her robe.

Craddock was in a hurry, but curious about why she was there when the rest of the choir was still in church. He asked if she was all right. She looked up and said she was quitting.

“What do you mean?” Dr. Craddock asked, “Are you resigning from the choir? After all these years?”

“No”, she said, “I’m quitting this church. I’ve been here for years, and nobody pays any attention to me. Nobody knows me at all. In this church, nobody cares.”

Fred looked at her and said, “You’re wrong.”

She glared back at him and said, “I’m right.”

Craddock glanced at his watch, conscious of the irony, and said, “I’ve got to go, but let me tell you, you’re wrong.”

As he dashed out the door her voice trailed after him, “I am not; in this church nobody cares.”

The Psalmist thought that as well because he lamented, “I cry aloud with my voice to the LORD; I make supplication with my voice to the LORD. I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare my trouble before Him. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path. In the way where I walk They have hidden a trap for me. Look to the right and see; For there is no one who regards me; There is no escape for me; No one cares for my soul.” Psalm 142:1-4 (NASB).

What tragic words, “No one cares for my soul.” What a horrible state of mind, “No one cares for my soul.” Have you ever felt like that? “No one cares for my soul.”?

The poor woman in the text for today very likely wondered, “Who cares?” Jesus showed that He does! Let’s consider her situation and His action: “He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, ‘Woman, you are freed from your sickness.’ And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, ‘There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.’ But the Lord answered him and said, ‘You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?’ As He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him.” Luke 13:10-17 (NASB).

Satan tells you “Nobody cares what happens to you – they only care about what happens to themselves.” Not so, Liar! Well, let me shed some light into that darkness, some truth into that lie, some correction into that error. Jesus cares!

1. HE PUTS PEOPLE OVER PRECEPT:

a. By precept I mean rule of conduct.

i. Now, He knew it was the Sabbath, and He knew the prohibitions attached to the Sabbath. He wrote the rule! He propounded the precept.

ii. But He said, “this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?”

b. He did not break the Sabbath, He used it!

i. Sabbath means, “Cease, desist, interrupt, rest.”

ii. The idea is not that of absolute, paralytic inactivity, but cessation from normal labor and activity.

iii. He interrupted and ceased Satan’s bondage of this woman.

c. The situation was that while

i. The Jews put minute interpretation on work: for instance, According to rabbinical ideas, the disciples, by plucking ears of corn and rubbing them broke the Sabbath” in two respects;