“Christ is the Good Physician. There is no disease He cannot heal; no sin He cannot remove; no trouble He cannot help.”

“Healing comes only from that which leads the patient beyond himself and beyond his entanglements with ego....” ~ Carl Jung: (1875 – 1961: was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology)

Gospel Text:  (LK 13:10-17)

Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.
And a woman was there who for eighteen years
had been crippled by a spirit;
she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.
When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said,
"Woman, you are set free of your infirmity."
He laid his hands on her,
and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.
But the leader of the synagogue,
indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath,
said to the crowd in reply,
"There are six days when work should be done.
Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day."
The Lord said to him in reply, "Hypocrites!
Does not each one of you on the sabbath
untie his ox or his ass from the manger
and lead it out for watering?
This daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now,
ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day
from this bondage?"
When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated;
and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.

The chief of the synagogue criticizes Jesus for curing on the Sabbath.  The chief of the synagogue was apparently healthy and needed no cure.  Apparently healthy.  Yes, his body may have been healthy, but what about his soul?  He comes across as one possessed with a spirit of self-righteousness, badly stooped with pride, and so infirm that he cannot recognize who Jesus is. 

Who was more in need of a cure, the woman or the chief of the synagogue?

Where is healing needed in our world today?  Yes, there are many people who are physically infirm and in need of a cure.  But many others are crippled by anger, shackled by fear, eaten up by greed, impaired by hypocrisy, blinded by prejudice, starving for appreciation and thirsting for love.  Infirmity is all around.

If we recognize that we are all children of God, created by God, dependent up God and loved by God, then we have well-grounded hope for the cure that is peace.  We can stand up straight and continually be thanking God.