Loosed from this bond – that’s actually a direct translation from the Greek. When Jesus heals the woman, he says, “You are now loosed from your bond.” I have been blessed with a long career in the ministry. This October, fingers crossed, knock on wood – see, I am superstitious. I got it from my eternal grandfather, beloved Gerald Eugene Jones. And we – my brother and sister and I – when we were kids we’d be riding somewhere with him. He loved to take us on day trips whenever he was in town. We called him grand pap – “Grand pap, when are we going to get there?” And you know what he said. “We’ll get there when we get there.” He explained it to us – “If I tell you we’re going to get there at 5 o’clock, something bad is going to happen.” He also told us, I think partly tongue in cheek but partly seriously, he said, “If you look out the window and you see a cemetery, tell me, because I don’t want to look at it. It’s bad luck to look at the cemetery.” Has anybody ever heard that one? OK, I think it was unique to this.

So, fingers crossed, knock on wood, I will begin my 38th year of ordained ministry in October. Thirty-eight years. So far. It has been a wonderful ride. There have been a few speed bumps along the way. We raised our son, Jackson, so now it’s a part of the culture of our family. We’ve taught him that there are two ways to look at problems, challenges, mistakes. Whatever challenges us in life, ask the question, “Is this a speed bump or is it a wall?” Right? The difference between a speed bump, a temporary problem, and a wall that stops you flat in your tracks. What’s the biggest wall, the hardest wall? Anybody want to guess? This is all my theory, of course. Death? That is a wall. There are other walls. Is it a speed bump or a wall? So far in my career I have had a few speed bumps along the way, and I also have had a few walls. Thankfully, not very many. The walls that stop you in your tracks and say it’s time to make a significant change in your life, whether you want to or not. So in my 38 years, I’ve had some speed bumps, I’ve had a handful of walls. I know I’m not alone in this. I know you understand what I’m saying.

I bring this up in the context of our passage from Luke this morning. We are hearing about a woman, and it is important to notice that this is a woman in the male-dominated society. Down the road a little bit in this passage, this is one of the primary problems that the religious authorities are talking to Jesus about. Not only did you heal somebody on the Sabbath; it was a woman. Jesus responds, “Hey, guess what, guys? We’re going to treat human beings, even women, better than cattle. You treat your cattle, your oxen and your cows, better than you treat human beings. No more. Not on my watch.” This daughter of Abraham, he elevates her to the level of the men he is talking to. This is the context of our passage. We are hearing about a woman who is dealing with a wall that has stopped her in her tracks and thrown her to the ground. Listen to the language, the literal translation, and it does come through in the English. We’re told that she has a spiritual problem. In the Greek, it says she had a pneuma. That’s the New Testament word for spirit. She had a spirit crippling her. We need to see this as a spiritual healing. This spiritual problem has been going on for 18 years. We are told flat out by Luke that it’s a spiritual problem that she couldn’t shake. Luke wants us to see this as a spiritual problem, so she needs a spiritual healing.

How about you? How about me? Do you have anything from your past or anything in your present that is haunting you today? You can’t shake it. Do you have a person from your past? Do you have a person in your present who is haunting you today? I am declaring publicly from this pulpit that I do. I bet you do too. I have a small handful of people from my ordained ministry past – I’m very happy to tell you, none of you, nobody in this congregation qualifies for this, but I do have a small handful of people from my ordained past, a lot longer than 18 years, who still haunt me a bit today. It’s really interesting, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence, that I ran into one of them this week, at Meier in Westerville. Isn’t that interesting?

I love these instantaneous healings that Jesus does, and that’s what this is. It’s an instantaneous healing. Jesus is very good at being Jesus. Write that down. Jesus is very good at being Jesus. We should not see these seemingly insignificant, instantaneous healings as some form of magic. That is not the point. We should read them in a way this morning where we feel that Luke is speaking to us in code and speaking to us in metaphor. He says the woman was bent over, unable to stand up. She was crippled with a spiritual burden for 18 years. Eighteen years, that’s nothing. When Jesus sees her, he calls her over. Notice that. He says, “Come over here. You, come to me.” And he says, literally, “You are loosed from this bond.” Bondage, she was in bondage. He says, “You are loosed from this bond, loosed from whatever has put you in bondage.” Then he laid his hands upon her. This is a form of blessing. On the Sabbath he lays his hands on a woman in front of the male religious leaders, and immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. Somebody once said, maybe you’ve heard this, “Resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die.” We all know how resentment can hurt us physically. A spiritual resentment that we carry for years can negatively affect us in thousands of ways in our bodies. It’s like we can’t stand up. We need to be healed.

Now, I’m not going to go into a lot of details, so stay with me. Just one detail. Many of you know this. At the end of April of this year, my right carotid artery in my neck was determined to be almost completely closed with plaque. At the beginning of May, my surgeon made a six-inch incision in my neck and cleaned it out. The surgery was a success. At the end of May, I had my first follow-up appointment with my surgeon. I sat down in his examination room. He walked up to me. He’s a man of few words. I’m convinced he’s a genius. Probably everybody feels this way about somebody who saves their life. But he’s got to be an introvert. I’m diagnosing him in public in front of you. He’s got to be an introvert. You know what he said to me when it was time to go into the surgery? The anesthesiologist came in first, and he was an over-the-top extrovert. He stood there and talked at me for 10 minutes. I liked him, he was funny. Then the surgeon came in and he looked at me and he said, “Well, let’s do this.” That was it. So now I have my follow-up examination. He walked up to me. He walked up close to my neck, to my incision. He didn’t touch it. You know what he said? He said three words. He said, “You heal well.” It’s great to hear. Do you want to hear it? Yeah. You heal well.

Whatever crippling bond is spiritually binding you today, the one that you have been burdened with for 18 years or more, you can do this. You can let it go. You can heal well. When I saw my speed bump in Meier this week, I just smiled and we shook hands and walked away. We can heal well. The living spirit of Christ can lead us to this healing. Do you hear those words? “Come over here,” Jesus said. Come over here. Come over here, I can heal you. The living spirit of Christ can change us and heal us instantly. We don’t have to see a surgeon. The spirit is saying, “Come over here.” My concept of the Christ is such that we hear those words and we instantaneously discover within ourselves the Christ. That’s how the Christ comes to us. We awaken to it.

I’m going to finish with this. I told you this once before and I’m going to tell you again. I like saying it. It was a major moment in my life. I was in a church group, and we were whitewater rafting on the New River in West Virginia. Anybody else ever done this? We had about 35 high school students and adults, and you have a meeting. You get your helmet and your life vest and your paddle and you have a meeting, and the experts tell you what’s going to happen. The first thing they said was, “You’ve got to take this seriously. Three months ago, we had somebody that drowned.” I looked around, and I was responsible for all these kids. And I thought, “We’re leaving. We’re not going to do this.” But we stayed, and everything ended up being fine. So we did the whitewater, and it was great, and then it was about two-thirds into the ride that we took that day. The river widens and there’s no whitewater. It’s moving along fast, but there’s no whitewater. The guide said, “This is a great time. If anybody wants to jump in and swim, you can do it. And then when I tell you, come to the raft. We’ll help you get back in.” I said to myself, “No, nobody’s doing this.” And everybody did it, so I did. I’m talking to you about letting go. I’m talking with you about after 18 years standing up, letting Christ heal us. Because I will never forget it. I got in that water, obviously life vest on. I all of a sudden intuitively said to myself, “I’m going to consciously extend zero energy from myself, from my body.” I would completely let my body go with no energy. And man, did I zip along. That river was something else. No energy from me. None. I thought, this is what letting go means. Let it go. Whatever it is, let it go. You are loosed from your bond. Holy Spirit, take us. We are free to choose any road, and any road we choose, Christ will walk with us, and we will travel loosed from this bond. Amen? Amen.