When teaching for the Sabbath in synagogue one day,
Our Lord did see a woman who could not make her way.
Bent over and unable to stand up straight or tall,
For eighteen years she lived so, with no hope seen at all.
When Jesus saw her waiting, he called her out and said,
"See, woman, you are free now," with hands placed on her head.
Immediately she straightened and cried out earnest praise,
Rejoicing in renewed health to last her all her days.
The synagogue's own leader was vexed and wroth and sore
That healing work had happened on Sabbath, not before.
Our Lord called out his error and challenged his false ways,
And all the people mocked him, but Jesus heard their praise.
Is healing ever wrong or somehow out of place?
Are there some circumstances to turn away God's grace?
When Jesus, on the Sabbath, did help her stand up tall,
He showed that healing comes forth in any time and all.
TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, August 2025, after Luke 13:10-17.
MUSIC: Preferred tune MERLE'S TUNE, Hal H. Hopson, 1983 Copyright 1983 Hope Publishing Company.
Alternate tunes:
AURELIA, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1864.
VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN, Melchior Teschner, 1614; harm. William Henry Monk, 1861.
MUNICH, Neuvermehrtes Meiningisches Gesangbuch, 1693; adapt. Felix Mendelssohn, 1847.
The hymn-writing impulse might be back; having some clarity about my future apparently helps, as this is one of two hymns I wrote in one day after being unable to write much all summer. Since the preferred tune is under copyright I don't print it here; the given tune, VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN, is one most congregations sing on Palm Sunday.
