Stewardship of Time #4                October 20, 2024
Luke 13:10-17                                  Pastor Ryan Wolfe

“This can’t wait until tomorrow”

Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Lion had done exactly what the Wizard of Oz had asked them to do. Before he would give them the brain, the heart, the courage, and the ticket home he told them they needed to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West (confident that they wouldn’t be able to do it). Of course, against all odds, they do! Not to spoil an 85-year old plot point, but Dorothy melts the witch with a bucket of water and returns to the wizard. “We’d like you to keep your promise to us, if you please, sir.”

Shocked at their success, he says, “Not so fast. Not so fast! I’ll have to give the matter a little thought. Go away and come back tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?” Dorothy asks with disbelief and sadness. “Oh, but I wanna go home now!”

“Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz! I said come back tomorrow!” shouts the Wizard, who is neither great nor powerful; he’s stalling because he has no idea how he might help.

At the start of our gospel reading, the great and powerful Jesus is holding an audience. “On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues.” All the usual suspects were there, the every-Sabbath worshipers, the synagogue ruler, the upstanding members of the community. But there was also someone else. “a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.” The woman had been afflicted by a demon that crippled her body. Not just for a while – for eighteen years! And on this day she sits in the back of the church, watching and wondering.

But then Jesus sees her and her world is changed. This woman that it seems no one else noticed. Not the synagogue ruler—he would prefer she comes back tomorrow to see Jesus. Not the other listeners—they seem to be used to her pain. But Jesus sees her. He’s not too busy with his sermon to interrupt it. He sees her. The one in the shadows. The one in pain for so long. The helpless. The outcast. The one who didn’t (or couldn’t) reach out to him first. Jesus saw her.

“When Jesus saw her, he called her forward.” Her mind must have raced. “What does he want with me? What will the people say? What will he say? He knows my condition – he knows my demon. Will he say I don’t belong here?! Not in the synagogue. This is God’s house and God’s day. Can’t you wait until tomorrow?’”

But what does Jesus say? Plainly. Simply. “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Instead of judgment, Jesus looks at her with compassionate. This can’t wait until tomorrow. He doesn’t want to wait one more moment to restore her. He calls her to the front! “Yes, you belong here!” He tells her, in front of the crowd – in God’s house, on God’s day – “Woman, you are free!” “Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.”

Can you imagine this happening in the middle of a church service? Jesus the preacher stopping in mid-sermon. The woman nervously stepping to the front. Jesus’ miraculous words. Her miraculous healing. And what do we see immediately after Jesus preaches this living sermon? “Immediately she straightened up, and glorified God.” Jesus didn’t just remove the evil spirit. He didn’t just straighten her spine. By his love her very soul is set free, and just as quickly as he had compassion on her, she responds in praise to her God.

Can you imagine this happening in the middle of a church service? You walk into church, maybe slinking into the back pew, not because it’s where you always sit, but because you don’t want to be noticed. Or you come to your normal pew and try to look normal, but inside you are hunched over with the demands and demons of this life, fighting against a soul that is curved in on itself because of sin and the devil. You are helpless. You don’t deserve to be here, in the audience of the great and powerful Jesus, not with all these other people who look like they have it put together. He’ll teach here, but it won’t be for you. Maybe you can try him again tomorrow.

But for just a moment don’t look at this service through your eyes, or the eyes of other people here, or the pastor’s eyes. Look through Jesus’ eyes. Know that he sees you—yes, all of you. Every last creak of spine and crack of soul. Look at your weekday morning devotion, your small group study. In every devotion, you have more of Jesus’ attention than he has of yours. He sees how helpless we are without him, how we cannot raise ourselves up to stand straight before him. So he doesn’t wait, he speaks! He has to—this can’t wait until tomorrow! He speaks with the living and active Word of God: “Woman, man, child, you are set free from your infirmity!” And in this Gospel promise, this unearned peace, we glorify God too.

That’s what the Sabbath is always about. In the Old Testament it had the be the seventh day. A 24 hour period when God’s people set aside the world to be with God and to encourage one another. And even Jesus fulfilled the legal requirements of the law with his perfect obedience, the will of God that tells us to hear his word and learn it remains. Not for burden but for blessing. In this Word God gives us rest from our sin and infirmities. Jesus knows our every weakness, and so he knows that this can never wait until tomorrow. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!

But how does the synagogue ruler react to this compassion of Jesus? He’s indignant! He cares more for the law than the people. “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” Wherever Jesus’ word is there is opposition. Wherever Jesus does something wonderful, the devil is working to destroy it. Wherever the gospel brings faith into flame, our sinful natures work hard to ignore it, or avoid it, or put it off. The synagogue ruler isn’t the only one who comes with excuses to tell Jesus that he should come back tomorrow. We can do that too!

For three weeks, we’ve been talking about God’s most special earthly gift. The one gift that no one else can give, that none of us can ever add to or increase. This gift of time is essential to our ability to know God, see him, serve him, and share him. Yet all too often when faced with Jesus, his timing strikes us as inconvenient. Every week, Jesus holds the doors to his church open for worship. He gives us a chance to pause and rest in his Word. But our sinful natures rise up against the blessing and that voice in our heard tells us once again, “can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

Jesus’ answer to the proud synagogue ruler puts our excuses to shame too. “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

In modern-day terms, think of the things that you will use your time for. The things that can’t wait until tomorrow. If it’s your day off but your dog needs to go outside early in the morning, you take him out right? That dog won’t wait until tomorrow! If a storm throws a branch through the window of your home, you call for a fix right away, don’t you. That can’t wait until tomorrow. If you slip on the ice and can’t put weight on your leg, you go in for the x-ray to see if it’s broken. That can’t wait either.

So why do we wait when it’s Jesus? We’re often better at putting off Jesus than we are putting off our pets, or our home needs. Or our physical health. Or our jobs, our hobbies, or families or our friends. But today look through Jesus’ eyes. He sees your heart, and how Satan wants to bind you again. He sees the weight of what you are facing in this world. He sees the sin at work in our hearts and how helpless we are against it. And when he sees you, he knows: This can’t wait until tomorrow. We need Jesus’ healing, his compassion, his redemption today. So he comes to us in his Word with promises of peace. Reassurances of forgiveness. Words of hope. He comes to us in the Lord’s Supper, reminding us of the sacrifice he made to set us free. And free is what we are.

And when Jesus breaks into your routine and shows you the glorious things he has done for you, then you’ll understand that it was not only just the right time for him to help you, but for you to respond to glorify him. You see, our response can’t wait for tomorrow either. Today is the day to work, before the night falls and this world ends with our Savior’s glorious return. Today is the day to pause and reprioritize our efforts and our energy into those holy things that last and endure.

In the Wizard of Oz, when the wizard tells them to come back tomorrow, Dorothy responds, “If you were really great and powerful, you’d keep your promises.” The Wizard couldn’t. But Jesus can. And Jesus does. So use your time for him. Come back to him day after day, weekend after weekend. Pause and seek the rest that only he can give—and as you see opportunities to glorify him in return you too will say, “This can’t wait until tomorrow!” Amen.