In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets a woman who has been bent double for eighteen years.
Eighteen years — looking down, never up.
Eighteen years of seeing only the dust, not the sky.

And in one moment, Jesus calls her forward, lays His hands upon her, and says,
“You are set free.” And she stands upright and glorifies God.

That’s what grace does.
Sin bends us. Grace straightens us.
Sin looks down. Grace looks up.
Sin says, “You’ll never change.” Grace says, “Stand tall, you’re a child of God.”

St Paul says in Romans, “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’”

In other words, the Holy Spirit is not a chain — He’s a key.
He doesn’t make you less yourself; He makes you finally yourself.

When we live only for the flesh, we bend inward —
curved in on our own desires, our own comfort, our own control.
But when the Spirit enters, He lifts us — outward toward God,
upward toward heaven,
and even sideways toward others in love.

Freedom in the Spirit isn’t doing whatever we want;
it’s finally being able to do what we ought —
and to love doing it.

That bent woman is more than a person; she’s a picture.
She’s the human race under the weight of sin.
She’s Israel waiting for redemption.
She’s the Church, bowed down by the ages,
until the Lord reaches out again with mercy.

And she’s each of us,
whenever we come to the Lord half-crippled by guilt, regret, or weariness.

Notice what Jesus does:
He sees her, He calls her, He touches her, He heals her.
That’s the whole rhythm of salvation.
It’s the same pattern as the sacraments —
Christ sees, calls, touches, heals.

In Baptism He calls us by name.
In the Eucharist He touches us with His own Body and Blood.
In Confession He speaks again that word: “You are set free.”
Every sacrament straightens the soul a little more.

The ruler of the synagogue complains that Jesus healed on the Sabbath.
He sees rules; Jesus sees release.
The law was meant to give rest — not to prevent it.
Jesus restores the meaning of the Sabbath: not a burden, but a blessing.

Sometimes religion can go wrong that way —
when we forget the “why” and only remember the “how.”
But Jesus brings us back to the heart of faith:
not rule-breaking, not rule-keeping,
but love that fulfills the law.

The world still tries to bend us over —
under the weight of fear, anxiety, sin, or cynicism.
But the Spirit of adoption lives in us.
He lifts our faces again toward heaven and teaches us to say, “Abba, Father.”

So if your prayer life feels dry, stand tall.
If guilt or habit or fatigue weighs you down, stand tall.
If you’ve been walking with eyes to the ground,
remember the Lord who lays His hand upon you and says,
“You are set free.”

To live in the Spirit means walking upright in hope,
not as slaves, but as sons and daughters of God.

That’s the whole Christian story in one gesture:
bent humanity, lifted by grace.
The Spirit takes what sin has twisted
and makes it straight again in Christ.

So today, don’t let anything bend your soul.
The same Lord who freed that woman in the synagogue
walks into this church and says to you:

“Stand up, child of God.
You are free.”