On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and 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.
When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.”
Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Luke 13:10-13
Being seen by Jesus makes all the difference.
Being seen by Jesus changes everything.
The bent over women didn’t approach Jesus.
As far as this Sunday’s gospel lesson in Luke tells us, the woman didn’t go to worship in the temple that day thinking “I will seek Him out, I will somehow get to Him.”
The woman went to the temple as was her custom…to worship God.
She did not let the imperfection of her body stop her from worship.
For 18 years, her identity had become “the bent over woman”.
For many who believed physical infirmity was a punishment for sin, she was known as
“the bent woman who sinned.”
But in the temple, in worship, she heard about and knew her true identity.
She was a daughter of Abraham, a member of the covenant community,
a child of God.
No here-today-gone-tomorrow-blade-of-grass-mortal-broken-body
could change that.
And so, she worshiped. And then…she was seen.
This seems a wonderful example of prevenient grace.
All of us, bent under the weight of sin, before we ever think or know to hope
for God’s healing grace, are seen, known, and loved by God.
Before we ever think to see or seek God, we are first seen and sought.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” God says to Jeremiah (1:5)
Known and loved long before…
Before we ever turn our eyes to Jesus…His gaze has seen us from before…
with eyes of saving Love.
God’s grace sees us, calls our name…and like the bent woman in the temple that day…we turn.
We turn and we are called to come, and be forever changed.
God’s grace calls and invites us to be set free from all that binds and weighs heavy
and seeks to break us or convince us we are not worthy of God’s love.
We are invited to be made whole by the One Who was broken for us.
An eternal holy wholeness, the gracious gift of forever Love.
And then we live our praise for this gift of grace by following the example of Christ our Savior, offering that grace to the world with our lives.
Offering grace becomes our worship.
Giving what we have received. Seeing others as we have been seen.
We, the Body of Christ, we the workers alive with God’s grace, follow our Savior’s example and see.
We see the bent and the broken and the weighed down. We see and we do not turn away.
We see and we call and we invite and we welcome…offering holy hope, and holy help, and holy love, born not of our opinions, or doctrines, or sabbath rules,
but born of grace.
Born of God, Who scatters and unleashes grace on every kind of soil in every kind of place in every kind of life,
and Who calls us to go to the ends of the world to do the same.
Called by grace to be God’s grace,
to see as we have been seen.
Because…
being seen by Jesus makes all the difference.
Being seen by Jesus changes everything.
Thanks be to God.
May it be so, in you and in me.
Always thankful for you.
Grace and peace, 
Dena