A PARALYSIS OF THE MORAL SENSE

JESUS HEALS THE CRIPPLED WOMAN ( Luke 13,10).

Jesus, whether because of the lesser excommunication (the cherem ) or for any other reason, seems, during this latter period of His ministry, to have entered the synagogues but rarely. The exclusion, however, from one synagogue or more did not include a prohibition to enter any synagogue. On this day there sat among the worshippers a poor woman who, for eighteen years, had been bent double by "a spirit of infirmity". Jesus called her to Him and healed her.  Her strain of thanksgiving was interrupted by the ignorant indignation of the ruler of the synagogue. Here, under his very eyes, and without any reference to the "little brief authority" which gave him a sense of dignity on each recurring Sabbath, a woman - a member of his congregation - had actually had the presumption to be healed!  Armed with his favorite "texts", and in all the fussiness of official hypocrisy, he gets up and rebukes the perfectly innocent multitude, telling them it was a gross  instance of Sabbath-breaking for them to be healed on that sacred day, when they might as well be healed on any of the other six days of the week!  or, "If any one wants to heal you on a Sabbath, you must decline!".

The whole range of the Gospels does not supply any other instance of an interference so illogical, or a stupidity so hopeless. "Hypocrite!"  was the one crushing word which Jesus addressed him. It  would be difficult to imagine such a paralysis of the moral sense, if we did not daily see the toxic effect produced upon the intellect by the "deep negative effect of a decided opinion", especially when the opinion rests upon nothing better than a meaningless tradition. Jesus endeavoured to show the Pharisees of His nation that their views about the Sabbath degraded it from a divine benefit into a revolting bondage. (Farraar)

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