Devotionals

Righteous Indignation

by Terry Barlow
04/21/14
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Wow! It's hard to take in that leaders actually got angry in Luke 13 because Jesus healed a woman on the wrong day! She had been bowed over for 18 years. "Think of it," he tried to reason with them to ponder what those 18 years had been like in that miserable condition. The Pharisees showed that they cared more about rules than people, even more for their oxen and donkeys which they would rescue from distress in an emergency, even if it fell on a Sabbath day. So they showed that in addition to reverencing rules more than human life, they cared more for the needs of their animals than the needs of people. This would not have been recorded by Luke if it didn't have some potential parallel in our own lives. It's not there just for history's sake, to show how hypocritical was a class of people long ago, so we can take self-righteous potshots at them. No, the hypocrisy smuggles itself into our own midst today in some of our mindsets and attitudes that would grieve and anger Jesus just as much, though He loves us; even BECAUSE He loves us. And Jesus isn't done with this issue. He wants it to sink deep into their memories. In the very next chapter he challenges and defies this pharisaical mindset again, healing a man whose body was swollen with fluid, claiming they would do as much for their own animals so how could this healing relief be denied a human being, implying through his words and actions that human beings are made in God's image, while animals are not, and yet we care for them as we ought to, but let it not be more than for people.