Stand Straight!

Jesus once met a woman who was bent over and couldn’t stand up straight. The story says she had been walking like that for 18 years. Eighteen years! For eighteen years, the story says this woman had been crippled. Perhaps over that time, she had learned to think of herself as a cripple, and nothing more than a cripple. But perhaps the healing power of Jesus was that he didn’t see her only as a cripple, a gimp. He saw her as a person, a person worthy of his attention, his regard, his love. He saw her as a child of God, a daughter of Abraham, and he placed loving hands on her, and in his touch, she found healing. And then she straightened up. She stood up tall. And when once she had tried everything to avoid being noticed, now she praised God for everyone to hear.  

I think there is something of that woman in each of us. She stands for us, in whatever ways we are unable to stand straight and tall and proud as children of God, and when Jesus reaches out and helps her to stand straight, he is also reaching out to each of us: “Child of God, daughter of Abraham, son of Sarah, you are set free! Set free! Claim the freedom which I am offering you today! Let go of the labels which oppress you, the ways in which you think of yourself which keep you from being less than what you can be, less than what you are. Stand tall and proud, straighten up!”