Freedom and Captivity

Now today we turn, or rather return, to our series in the Gospel of Luke.
Luke's Gospel, possibly more than the other Gospels, is about discipleship.
That is, he answers the question, what does it mean to be a disciple, to be a follower of Jesus?
And if we were to track back through Luke's Gospel, we would find that emphasis.
And as we go on further in Luke's Gospel, we find that emphasis.
But he's also painting a picture of God's Kingdom.
This is what Jesus's Kingdom will look like.
This is how followers of Jesus will live in his Kingdom.
Now the last time we were in the Book of Luke was back in February,
and with the warnings of chapter 13 verses 1 to 9, which form part of our Bible reading this morning.
It regarded the urgency to repent, and thus to be able to live in God's Kingdom,
and the need for fruit-bearing as evidence of being members of this same Kingdom.
And today we'll look at another aspect of discipleship, another aspect of God's Kingdom,
or living in God's Kingdom as we return to our series in Luke's Gospel.
But let me pray before we start.
Father, we are here together to worship you.
We are here together to sing and to pray.
We're here together to encourage one another, support one another,
and build one another up.
But we're also here today to open our ears and our hearts to your Word.
Father, prepare us this morning to receive your Word.
Prepare us to be able to also apply your Word as we leave the walls of this room, Lord.
Help us to listen. Help us to put away distractions.
Help us to give our full attention to what you have to say to us through your Word this morning.
In Jesus' name we pray it. Amen.
In Stockholm, in Sweden, in 1973, a certain Jan Erik Olsson attempted to hold up the central bank in that city.
Now, during the attempt, two police officers were shot at
and several bank employees were taken hostage by Olsson and also a second man
and were held up for six days.
But a strange thing happened.
A number of the hostages became emotionally attached to their captors
and not only defended them when they were freed from their six-day ordeal,
but in one case became a family friend of one of the bank robbers.
Now, it's known as Stockholm Syndrome. You may have known that.
It's defined as a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy
and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.
The FBI believes that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm Syndrome.
Now, our passage, in part, is about a spiritual form of this Stockholm Syndrome,
those who are happy and content to live in a kind of spiritual captivity.
Now, as we go through these few verses here, you'll see the language of captivity and of freedom.
Jesus speaks, or he uses words like sepri, of untying in this passage.
They're all, in fact, I think three times used in this passage
and they come from the same Greek word meaning to loose.
And then he will also, there's the idea of the opposite of that.
The woman in this passage is seen to be captive and to be bound by Satan.
And we see these words, these ideas of freedom and captivity
actually intertwined right through this whole text.
And so we have two contrasting pictures, don't we?
One of freedom and one of captivity.
And that's essentially what our passage is about.
It's about those who find this freedom in Jesus
and those who are determined by their own love of that which keeps them captive
are happy to remain in a spiritual kind of prison.
And we need to ask ourselves this morning, what keeps me spiritually captive?
What prevents me from experiencing the freedom that comes from Jesus Christ?
Indeed, am I content, am I happy in my own spiritual prison?
Not wanting or not even desiring to be set free
and so suffering from a kind of spiritual Stockholm syndrome.
Now, Luke presents these two contrasting characters in this passage
to illustrate his point, a crippled woman and a synagogue ruler.
And the first picture is that of freedom, the crippled woman.
In verse 10, Luke sets the scene.
Jesus is teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath.
This is not the first time, of course.
Recall back to chapter 4 where Jesus effectively begins his public ministry
and he reads there on that occasion from the book of Isaiah.
He's there in the synagogue in Nazareth.
And in doing so, he presents his mission, his divine mission to all listening that day.
And as we've now recorded, it's for us to see as well.
So let me remind you of those three verses or so regarding this mission of Jesus.
He says there in the synagogue, the Spirit of the Lord is on me
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind to release the oppressed
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
That's Jesus' mission statement.
That propelled him, in a sense, into his public ministry.
And from that moment on, he's out there preaching the good news,
setting prisoners free, he's recovering sight for the blind.
And in today's passage, Jesus will move forward,
another step in fulfilling this mission.
Now, in the synagogue where Jesus is teaching, there's a woman, we are told,
who's been a cripple for 18 years because of a spirit.
That is, she's been held captive to a spirit.
Now, exactly what that means is a little bit unclear.
On the face of it, some believe that it could be one of demon possession,
as we've seen in the gospels throughout.
So Jesus here doesn't actually drive out this demon if there was one,
as we see elsewhere in his response to someone who's been demon-possessed
in the gospels.
Maybe it's what we call oppression,
where a person is tormented externally by a demon and or by Satan.
Now, you recall back into the book of Job,
we see him in the Old Testament as an example of one who is tormented by Satan.
In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul speaks of his thorn in the flesh
as being a messenger of Satan to torment him.
That's probably the way we can understand that.
Either way, it would seem that her illness is as much spiritual as it is physical.
And for whatever reason, this woman has been held captive to Satan,
as we read in verse 16.
And this is visually evident from the state of her physical body.
But notice the timeframe here.
18 years she has been bent over, unable to stand up straight,
unable to walk without pain, maybe not even been able to walk at all,
unable to have a normal life, unable to find joy in everyday things.
Each day for the last 18 years has been a struggle for this woman.
She's a virtual prisoner in her own body,
held bondage to the pain and to suffering,
but captive to sorrow and no doubt poverty.
But here she is in the synagogue, presumably worshipping God.
And we think we find it hard and difficult to get to church some Sunday mornings.
But here is this woman, crippled,
probably unable to walk on her own there at the synagogue.
In verse 12, we read then that Jesus spots the crippled woman
and calls her out of the crowd.
Don't miss this moment.
This woman would have been marginalised,
thus not only suffering physically but also relationally.
She would have been a social outcast
and likely would have been ostracised by her own community.
No doubt many saw her as a sinner due to her physical condition,
as I've said before from the pulpit,
that many Jews believe that her physical disabilities
or any physical disability or ill health was a sign of divine judgement.
That's what we pick up often from the accounts in the Gospels.
Some would have then believed
that she shouldn't have been in the synagogue in the first place.
She would have been considered a nobody.
But despite being socially invisible, she is visible to Jesus.
And we read here those words, Jesus saw her.
Jesus saw her.
Out of all the people there that day,
Jesus has noticed this nobody sitting perhaps on the fringes of the synagogue.
It's a beautiful picture, isn't it?
Jesus sees her.
She's visible to Jesus even though she's invisible to...
She's visible to Jesus even though she's invisible to her community.
And all of a sudden, she becomes centre of attention.
But more significantly, she becomes centre of Jesus' attention
and specifically his care and his concern for her.
And so with all eyes on Jesus and on this woman,
Jesus says to her,
"'Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.'
Then Jesus puts his hand on her
and immediately she straightened up and praised God."
Immediately, she straightened up and praised God.
Instantly, for the first time in 18 years, she's able to walk upright.
After 18 years of being a cripple and bent over,
she is now free from her spiritual...
..of her physical and no doubt spiritual struggle also.
And immediately, now free from her disability, she praises God.
It's a great response, isn't it?
And by doing so, she participates again in the life of the community.
She's restored not only physically,
not only spiritually, but also relationally.
She has a new life,
a total transformation as a result of her encounter with Jesus Christ.
What was Jesus' mission?
From Luke, chapter 4?
To proclaim freedom for prisoners, to release the oppressed.
We see this happening, don't we?
He is one who has been set free,
released from her oppression by Jesus himself.
And what we see here are those who are confronted by Jesus
and who trust in Him, are totally, totally transformed by Him.
The crippled woman is not just partially healed, is she?
She's not just merely given some panadol to take away the pain.
She's completely restored, holistically so.
Fully restored back.
Sin and Satan put people into bondage.
It puts them in a prison that cannot be broken out of,
a dark cell where there is no hope.
And yet it's to this dark cell that Christ opens the door
and sets the prisoner free, totally free.
That's the picture that we see here.
The one who trusts in Jesus is no longer captive to sin,
but free to live for God,
free to experience the goodness and the grace in God.
This miracle of Jesus in this passage is symbolic, then,
of a much greater miracle of new life, isn't it?
This is the new life that only Jesus can offer,
a new start, a fresh start, a radical new beginning.
You see, Jesus came not only to heal physically,
but heal spiritually.
He came to set people free
not only from the physical bond of ill health or of poverty,
but to be free of sin,
from being captive to sin.
That is, to be free from the penalty of sin, which is death itself.
And Jesus demonstrates His authority then over Satan,
over the whole satanic realm of demons and so on,
and over sin and over death.
He demonstrates that He and He alone can break the chains of Satan
and free people from the power of sin.
And no longer does then sin reign over the Christian,
over the believer.
No longer does sin be our master.
No longer is sin going to be our ruler.
We now have a new master, one who will love us,
one who will care for us,
one who says,
come and enjoy the freedom that you now have with me living in my kingdom.
That's what Jesus is saying.
What joy must have there been in the synagogue that day for this woman,
for this woman's family, for all who knew her.
No doubt, well, not no doubt, but as a result we then see her praise God.
It's a great scene, isn't it?
Her immediate response is to thank God, to praise Him.
But the joy of that moment is short-lived, isn't it?
At least interrupted.
Not everyone is celebrating, we read.
The synagogue ruler objects to her healing in verse 14.
If the crippled woman is an illustration of being set free,
this ruler of the synagogue, this president of the synagogue,
is an illustration of one who is happy to remain in captivity.
Verse 14 says that he became indignant with Jesus,
or indignant because Jesus had healed her.
And then he argues his point not to Jesus, but to the people,
and thus attempting to reassert his authority
as the interpreter of scripture,
one of the functions of the synagogue ruler.
And he says there are six days for work,
so come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.
And notice almost all of this,
the almost laughable rationale of this Jewish leader.
He says to the people to come back on any of the other days
of the week and be healed.
Just not the Sabbath.
And one wonders what he would have done if they had come back.
Would he have healed them?
Did he have this kind of power that Jesus has just demonstrated?
And if so, why hadn't he healed before?
Why is this working?
And if so, why hadn't he healed before?
Why is this woman after 18 years still a cripple
if she could come back on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday or whatever?
Why is she still a cripple?
It's laughable, isn't it?
It's a mask, isn't it?
The ruler has no concern here for the sick,
but only for the myriad of man-made rules and regulations
that he was determined to keep above all else.
The fourth commandment says not to work on the Sabbath.
That's correct.
But to ensure that the people would not break this particular law,
various regulations had developed over the years.
Regulations, I think initially with good intent,
were there to help people keep, help God's people keep the Sabbath.
But the problem for the Jews in the first century
is that they took something good and made it bad, didn't they?
The Sabbath was a gift from God.
It was a day of rest.
It was made for man, Jesus tells us in Mark chapter 2.
It was a day of blessing, but it had become a day of burden.
And so by the time Jesus was around in the first century,
there were over 1,500 regulations just for the Sabbath alone.
And the problem was that these became equivalent to the law
and so that breaking one of these regulations
was the same as breaking one of the Ten Commandments
or any one of the laws in the Pentateuch.
And so as I've mentioned before, no doubt,
they were not allowed to brush their hair.
They weren't allowed to swat a fly.
They weren't allowed to walk more than two kilometres from their home.
Calling a doctor was prohibited unless it was for a life-threatening condition.
And certainly a crippled after 18 years was not life-threatening.
In the words of commentator Michael Wilcock,
the Jewish religion which was epitomised by the Sabbath
had become so fossilised and encrusted with the tradition of men
that it had become practically lifeless.
Judaism in the first century had become a barren religion
that bore no resemblance to its original intention.
And so this synagogue ruler, representative really of all the Jewish leaders in general,
chastises Jesus for not following these man-made rules
and these regulations that were there to set up to keep the Sabbath.
Now this encounter with Jesus is in stark contrast to the crippled woman, isn't it?
In verse 15 Jesus replies to this ruler and the other leaders who were present
calling them what? Calling them hypocrites.
Why? Because these same Jewish leaders will take time on a Sabbath to care for their animals.
Notice the lesser to greater argument of Jesus.
In doing this, if caring for an ox or a donkey is deemed acceptable on the Sabbath,
then surely looking after one of your own, a fellow Jew, this daughter of Abraham,
surely this ought to be acceptable, if not desirable practice on the Sabbath also.
You set your donkey free to be watered after being tied up for only a few hours.
Why not let this woman who has been made in the image of God
to be set free from her bondage after 18 years of being a cripple?
Why not let her be healed? Why not let her be loosed and be set free?
Jesus effectively says here.
You see these leaders are captive to religion.
They are captive to the tradition of men.
They could not see beyond their own rules to see God at work.
They could not see beyond their own regulations to love and to care for one of God's own people.
Their religion had taken them hostage.
And the sad thing is, for many, particularly the leaders of Judaism in the first century,
there was no desire to escape.
There was no desire to want to break free.
And it would seem that these leaders are no different from those who suffer from this Stockholm syndrome.
They begin to like their capital.
They start to like the prison of legalism.
It keeps them safe.
They prefer to be bound by the tradition of men rather than be set free by the Son of God.
And they refused to see Jesus as a liberator but rather saw him as an antagonist, an opponent of God.
Their comfort zone was their religious framework that had been set up.
So comfortable they did not realise how trapped they really were,
like the proverbial frog in a kettle not realising it was being slowly boiled to death.
Suffering from a spiritual Stockholm syndrome, they enjoyed the prison they were in,
believing it even to be pleasing to God.
And we are left then with a final contrast in verse 17.
Jewish leaders, these opponents of Jesus are humiliated while the people are delighted in what Jesus was doing.
The inference is that these leaders who opposed Jesus that day did not delight in what Jesus was doing.
They rejected him. They rejected what he had to offer.
And ultimately their encounter with Jesus did not result in being set free like the crippled woman.
Rather they preferred to remain captive to their own human religion, their own traditions of men.
Two contrasts, freedom and captivity.
Where does that leave us?
Two questions I think in response to this passage are worth asking.
And no doubt there are more that we could ask but there are two questions I just want to raise.
Firstly, does our religion, does our way in fact of doing church or doing Christianity
prevent us from experiencing all that Jesus has to offer?
Are we captive to traditions, different from maybe what the Jewish traditions were,
but are we captive to our own traditions, our own religious activities that stops us from enjoying the freedom that Christ has given us?
Perhaps we're no different from the Jewish legalists of Jesus' day, making a good thing bad.
Many of us were brought up with parents, and maybe we've adopted some of this ourselves,
who with good intention in most cases made Sundays a depressing kind of day.
Sundays is kind of the Christian Sabbath if you like.
But they made it a kind of a depressing day. No fun, no enjoyment.
Certainly no TV and certainly no organised sport.
I know some cases where even backyard cricket was banned in some homes.
So for many kids Sunday became a day to dread.
And probably for many adults as well, if they were honest.
And so instead of looking forward to going to church and hanging out with other Christians,
instead of all the good things that can happen on a Sunday,
it was ruined by this oppressive regime of legalism that was all about keeping rules and a little more hollow.
Perhaps our whole Christian experience is like this, a set of rules to obey in order to do right by God.
So it's not just a Sunday Sabbath type of thing.
Too afraid of breaking so-called rules and so-called man-made rules to enjoy being a Christian,
and to enjoy being in a relationship with God himself.
Perhaps that's where our life is at.
How we need to be careful of not falling into the same trap of the Jews of Jesus' day,
content with a cold, lifeless religion that constrains rather than sets free.
And by this I mean enjoying the freedom that God gives us through his grace.
Let me read from a book by Tim Chester, You Can Change.
I think Ross a few months ago did a book review on this.
Let me read just a little section here.
When we trust in Jesus, something decisive has happened.
It's no longer inevitable that we will sin when we face temptation.
And we have the power now to say no to temptation.
We have a new motivation to battle against sin.
We're no longer under law, but under grace.
And he says this is counter-intuitive.
People think that law and legalism will best motivate us to strive to be right.
The mistake, I think, that the Jewish leaders made.
But it's grace that enables us to live for God.
For sin shall not be your master, because you are no longer under law, but under grace,
says Paul in Romans chapter 6.
Grace, Tim Chester says, grace wins our hearts, end quote.
Grace wins our hearts.
In Christ, God has an everlasting treasury of this grace.
We are no longer as believers trapped by endlessly trying to make good with God
by our own law keeping, which is impossible.
We'll never please God through keeping the law.
We are instead set free from that impossibility
to experience all that God has for us in his son Jesus Christ.
True freedom comes from trusting in Jesus.
Not some rules, not our traditions, not our religion.
True freedom comes from trusting in Jesus.
But perhaps it's not our religion per se.
Perhaps we are captive to other things in this world
that prevent us from living free in Christ.
Certain habits, a lifestyle choice, various relationships that we have,
addictions that keep us all captive, even to the point of being wilfully captive
and thus prevent us from a true and vibrant relationship with Christ.
For the first century, Jew, it was legalistic religion.
But what is it for us?
What is it for us that has such a tight grip on us
that it blinds us to being set free, to enjoy the grace that comes through Christ Jesus?
Second, does our religion keep us from helping others more generally?
Does it keep us from being other person centred?
One author writes that any tradition that keeps us from helping others is not from God.
It's a bold statement. I think it's a true statement, isn't it?
Any tradition that keeps us from helping others is not from God.
Any tradition, any religious tradition, even if it's a good tradition,
if it stops us from helping others, then it's not from God.
Jesus demonstrated the higher order here in this passage.
In his own words elsewhere, as I've read, the Sabbath was made for man.
In God's good design, there was a day for man's well-being,
for his physical refreshment.
And to refuse to help another person on the basis of religious tradition
is to miss the point of God's goodness and love and care for his people.
That's in part what's happening in our passage.
So blinded by their tradition and legalism,
they valued a donkey over another fellow human being.
It's too easy to go through the motions of church, isn't it?
Of church activities and so on, but not be mindful of those around us.
We're happy to go to church.
We're happy to even participate in church programs,
but are we happy to participate in the lives of others,
to look out for those in need?
At the heart of our faith must be this other person's sentiness,
otherwise we too are in danger of just being religious and nothing more.
According to Wiki, a freedom fighter is a person engaged
in resistant movement against what they believe to be an oppressive
and illegitimate government.
Now, in our passage this morning, Luke is inviting people
to trust in Jesus the freedom fighter,
not against a government as such, but against an illegitimate master
called religion, man-made religion, which keeps people captive.
He invites his readers to witness the radical transformation
that Jesus gives from captivity to freedom,
from a dead religion to a religion that is alive and vibrant,
from a life of rules and regulations to one of grace,
from being held captive to bad habits, ungodly relationships,
unhealthy lifestyles, to being set free by Jesus Christ.
And he invites each one of us, doesn't he?
He invites each one of us, believer or unbeliever,
to be confronted this morning by this same Jesus, by this same Jesus.
He is the one who will set us free.
Let's pray.
Now, Father, we have a wonderful picture of the ministry of Jesus
in setting prisoners free, of releasing those who are oppressed.
And, Father, I don't know where we are at as people in this congregation.
I don't know what kind of oppression that we might be under,
whether we are feeling trapped, whether we are overly religious
and wanting to please you by following certain rules and regulations,
but no doubt there is one part of this text that is speaking to us.
Father, help us to see Jesus not as a following Jesus,
rather as not as a chore, not as a duty,
but as a wonderful freedom that we have to be the people that you want us to be,
to experience and to love the grace that comes through Jesus Christ.
Father, I pray that if we are feeling oppressed,
if we are feeling like we are trapped, help each one of us to reach out to Jesus.
Help each one of us to know what it means to put our trust in Jesus
and so to be set free from all that keeps us bound.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.