St Paul advises us to be kind and forgiving to each other and to imitate God by loving as He loved us. In choosing to live like children of light, we are not to indulge in fornication, impurity, or promiscuity which St Paul equates to worshipping a false god. What does it mean when we worship a false god? In this, we need to pay attention to the things we do and the boundaries we hold and whether what we do can be seen in the light or belongs in the shadows. It is possible to be so fully immersed in what the world finds acceptable that we drift further away from God’s calling. In doing so, we follow the counsel of the wicked and we linger in the way of sinners. Can we instead delight in the law of the Lord which was brought to its fullness in the coming of Christ?

Thus, we avoid the trap of the synagogue official whose focus was on the letter of the law, but not its spirit. So focused on upholding the technical requirements of the law that he lost sight of the need to always love and relieve human suffering. But Jesus goes against that narrow mindset. He was caring and compassionate, understanding the needs of this woman; He felt great empathy towards her, to the point of being willing to heal her of her infirmity.