Sabbath

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.
—Luke 13:10-17

How many years, my sister,
have you been burdened, bowed,
borne down, though you resist it,
your face pressed to the ground?
Yet there will come a sabbath
with crooked ways made straight;
you’ll step out of the shadows
and enter that bright gate.

How many years, my brother,
have you been bound and chained,
accused and left to suffer
where no one sees your pain?
Yet there will come a sabbath
when all the bound are loosed,
and you will lift your hands then
to praise the God of truth.

For this our Lord has spoken:
A day is coming soon
when chains will all be broken,
and oh, his word is true.
Yet now we wait for sabbath,
indentured to our deaths,
but he himself is ransom;
for us our God is spent.

The source of our tomorrows,
who made the seven days,
he knows our pain and sorrow,
for he has walked our ways;
and he will bring a sabbath
that shines eternally.
When death is bound and captive,
then Christ will set us free.