Today, I want to start off by telling you Jesus heals. Will you turn and tell someone Jesus heals.

We might count our woman as one of the walking wounded. She is bent over from a crippling spirit and has been for 18 years. She is in the synagogue as she probably is every Sabbath and she is healed. It is obvious to Jesus that she is wounded. It is obvious to Jesus that she has a crippling spirit . He sees her and has compassion.

Some woundedness is not obvious. Oh, it is a woundedness that comes from a crippling spirit but it is not obvious to us at a glance. It is a woundedness in our souls. How about it? Do you know what I am talking about?

There are things in our lives that will bend us over double. There are things in our lives that we can’t let go and won’t let go. And we carry them for years. We carry them to a place that we can’t see anything but these things.

It is a woundedness of grief and despair over lost dreams, over a life that never manifested. We may have been hurt by someone and can’t forgive. We might have spirits of pride or jealousy. We might have spirit of shame or guilt that we can’t let go. We might live under years of someone oppressing us. Someone who is telling us we are not good enough or we can’t do anything right.

The woman today may have had plenty of woundedness that bent her over. She was a woman in Jesus’ time which meant she was a second class citizen. It meant that she wasn’t good enough to be in the inner circle of temple. Her bent over back could have been from years of oppression that she did not have any control over.

She could have been completely depressed or angry. She may have had a negative spirit that continually made her look on the down side of life. She couldn’t think of anything positive.

Our woundedness manifests itself in anger, distrust, negativity, victim mentality, outbursts and the list goes on and on. These manifestations govern our lives. We make decisions in the midst of these feelings.

This could have been the life of the woman. Her burdens of her life were so great that they bent her over. All those things take a toll on us. She may have had those burdens as a result of her arthritis. She couldn’t be a part of the life she wanted to be because of it.

Several years ago I was flying back from Nevada and we were hitting some turbulence. We were to keep our seat belts on for two hours or the remainder of the flight. I knew I’d better go to the bathroom before I fastened up. The attendant asked me not to get out of my seat but I had to go. Well, when I was in that bathroom I could hardly stand up. The plane was rocking and rolling. I was jostled this way and that way.

I made my way back to my seat and when I sat down my back went into spasms. I could feel it twist and turn and I just sat there very still waiting for it to calm down.

Well, about 2 weeks later I was getting ready to go to church and all of sudden my back went out and I could not stand straight up. I had to walk bent over.

The pain was awful not to mention how I felt about not being able to work or go to school. I was in seminary at the time. I had a terrible burden.

A few days into the week, I was watching Kenneth Copeland on TV and at the end of his show he prays for people and he says there is someone out there who has back pain and we are going to pray for them now. Well, I really didn’t believe he was talking about me but I am game. I’ll pray and I am telling you during that prayer something happened to me. I still had back pain but the burdens of the inability to do things was lifted off of me. I experienced a freedom in my soul.

My entire attitude changed. I wasn’t worried or burdened with the problems of my back. In fact, I was able to go to school and I would stand the whole time. People would ask me how I was doing and I told them I was healed. My healing just had to catch up with my spirit.

Joni Erikson Tada speaks about the very same thing. I am not sure if all of you know her but she is a woman who, as a young girl, was in a diving accident and became a paraplegic. She is someone who wanted a physical healing and received a healing of her soul. Her physical healing never came but her healing of her anger and bewilderment and confusion was healed. She had lost of dream of having children and living out dreams that all young people have.

Sometimes the physical healing doesn’t come but there is still a healing.

Believe me Jesus does still heal our physical conditions. You know it. He heals us through supernatural healing and medical science. Jesus heals in all ways.

Jesus calls her today to come. Let me lift these burdens from your soul. Let me heal you in the places I know you need healed. Let me heal you so that you can live in freedom.

She doesn’t expect it. She has been coming here every Sabbath. She has been coming but because of the law, she isn’t able to be healed. Maybe that is the only time she can come. She doesn’t know anything else but her situation. But she is faithful and she is in her Sabbath. Jesus has compassion on this woman and calls her to come.

This is unorthodox. For her to come to Jesus means that she has to cross over into a place that she isn’t allowed to be. It is a foreign place - a place of discomfort. What does that mean to us?

Sometimes it is not comfortable to let things go. We’ve carried them so many years To break away from something that you have been for such a long time - how do I let this go? How can I move on past the anger, past the betrayal, past the jealousy?

He calls us to him through all the hurts that we have and heals us.

A cartoon shows a line of people waiting to be healed by Jesus. One man, carrying a piece of electronic equipment, cries out, "Lord, could you program my VCR?"

The woman believed. The woman came to Jesus today through the condemnation of the leaders of the synagogue. She came through all of the stares and the whispers and she allowed Jesus to touch her. She believed that it was worth the trip. It was worth the embarrassment. She believed something might come of it. She probably heard or maybe saw him in action and believed Jesus was who He proclaimed to be – sent from the Father. She came to Sabbath in her faithfulness but probably not expecting as it had been a long time.

I want you to turn to someone and say” I believe Jesus heals.”

Jesus says to her you are healed of your sickness. He touched her and she stood up straight

We come every Sunday wanting a word from God. We come every Sunday ready for God to speak a healing word to us - a word of encouragement to get us through the week.

I can’t leave this passage without talking about Sabbath. Sabbath is mentioned three times in this passage.

Sabbath provides a foretaste of the culmination of all things, a glimpse of God's dominion, a little slice of the messianic age dropped into the midst of regular time. Sabbath offers a remembrance of God's promise of peace and freedom for all of creation. It is a good thing, a gift from God

What does that all mean? Sabbath isn’t just about Sunday it is about our lives. It is Jesus as our Sabbath. Jesus calls to us and we come believing in a healing. I see Jesus’ healings all the time. Not so much the physical healings but the healings of the soul. Jesus calls us and He waits for us to come and receive. This is where the healing happens. It is in our Sabbath time with Jesus. He touches our hurts and we stand up straight and are free.

Allow Jesus to touch you. Allow Jesus to raise you up out of your burdened soul. Souls full of hurt and sorrow. We are the walking wounded and Jesus raises us up out of that bondage that our crippling spirits enslave us in. He raises us up out of our wounded condition and helps us to stand up straight so we aren’t looking at the world from the view of our own circumstances.

I want you to say with me “Jesus heal me.”