Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.  This morning we meditate on the Gospel Lesson, previously read.  Especially the word, “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
 
I don’t know if you ever have that where you wake up with a song in your head, but I had that last week. I woke up and I kept hearing a song.  The song was called Red Mosquito by the band Pearl Jam.  I looked it up and, apparently, it’s about a time when the lead singer got a bout of bad food poisoning and he felt really ill.  But the words say, “I was bitten, it must have been the devil, just paying me a little visit, reminding me of his presence.  Letting me know he’s waiting.  He’s waiting.”  Now of course the connection between the food poisoning and the devil is fair.  Whether Eddie Vedder believes it or not.  As I’m always making the point, something as common and often seemingly minor as food poisoning is a manifestation of the fallenness the devil brought as he tempted and drew our first parents into sin.  But isn’t this apt for our day?
 
Look all around us, the devil is paying us visits, isn’t he?  I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the word devil comes from the Greek word diabolos, to cast or throw through.  I think it’s hard not to see that and think of how the devil casts through us as people, both internally and how he casts through our relationships with each other and divides us.  We’re all experiencing that division now.  We experience it in the division of views on how to handle something like the coronavirus.  We, all the more, I think see it in our nation.  Look at how divided our country is politically.  Left and right are becoming increasingly separated.  Division is having its way.  The devil is paying us a visit letting us know that he’s waiting.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though he’s appearing visibly.  One of my favorite quotes is to say that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.  If he can convince us that he’s not there, then there’s no need to battle him.  But for those who recognize his division and his works, he’s there.  He’s waiting.
 
So, what do we do?  Well to start, we have to continue according to God’s word.  I was reading Gene Veith’s book “The Spirituality of the Cross” this week for the class I teach at Concordia.  I think I’ve mentioned that before, but that’s a great read to understand our lives as Lutherans.  The section, in particular, I read centered on what we call the Two Kingdoms, the understanding that God rules the world altogether in His Kingdom of Power, what we call the Kingdom of the Left.  But He rules His Church in His Kingdom of Grace, what we call the Kingdom of the Right.  And again to be clear, this is not a reference to political leanings of left and right.  The political distinction came about with the left and right sections of the assembly in Paris during the French Revolution.  The Two Kingdoms was well before that, discussed by Luther himself.
 
So, what’s the point about these two kingdoms?  Veith points out well that as Christians we must ensure that we don’t confuse them.  The devil wants us to confuse them, but we need to not.  We need to make sure that the role of the government is never understood to be that which will bring utopia.  You know I think we see that right now.  We see people running on platforms that act as though the utopia is within reach.  Well, I think we always see that, but with the division that’s in place, it’s seeming that this perspective is especially prevalent in comparison to years past.  There’s the expectation that government, the right one, the right candidate, the right president will bring the needed policy to aid us in bringing about the perfect life, or at least life here that’s that much more idyllic.  This on the one hand can be seen in view of the perspective that if we can maintain the ability to say Merry Christmas, or for our country to keep saying, “In God we trust,” this will preserve the ideals we need.  On the other it’s to say that if we conform to a certain standard we will eradicate injustice.  Christians, it’s bondage to think that the Government will provide the utopia that only heaven will be.  Only in the Kingdom of Christ, His final Kingdom of Glory will there be freedom from injustice, from suffering, perfect freedom to worship Him rightly.
 
So how do we deal with it?  In the knowledge that the government’s role should be to serve God’s will, God’s commands.  The government should in that protect the interests of the Church.  However, when Paul wrote about the honor due the government in Romans 13, or when Jesus said to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, they were describing the Roman empire, which had not treated Jews as kindly and freely as they ought to have, nor did they treat the Christians well in the early days of the Church.  But as we observe our civic duties and rightly so, we ought to remember that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven.  The injustices that we as the Church endure, or that we endure as individual Christians have their resolution, they are made right, not by our efforts, but in the suffering of our Lord Jesus on the Cross.  In Him we have the fulness of all that we need.  If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
 
As I say that, this hope that we have in human government is the hope that we have in the presence of the devil, isn’t it?  As the devil is around us, as we are “bitten” by him, as he lets us know that he’s waiting, there we see the bondage the devil brings to us.  There we see the immanence of the devil and his work around us, and how inescapable it is for us of our own efforts.  If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
 
But as we are in the midst of these constant reminders of the devil and his work around us, we have Jesus reminding us what freedom is and isn’t.  What do I mean?  Well, think about what we think of as freedom.  As we are divided in our country, there is an aspect where some of the division comes down to understanding what freedom is.  Freedom is viewed in terms of my rights, what’s due to me, what I deserve, what I am entitled to.  And to what are we entitled?  Whatever we want to set our hearts toward.  It can be the most depraved of sin, but my freedom ought to allow me the ability to pursue it.  I describe it by saying that we have confused liberty and license in our day.  We aren’t seeking to be free, we are seeking license to do commit any and every act that seems pleasurable to us.
 
I was listening to some quotes from some public figures, one being a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto named Jordan Peterson.  Now, Dr. Peterson, I don’t believe is a professing Christian, but there are a lot of things that he says that I think are consistent with what we could call Judeo-Christian ethic.  The quote I heard from him was one I really appreciated.  He said something to the effect of this: “Over the last 50 years our conversations have focused on rights.  Discussion of rights has its place and is good, but we have done this to the detriment of our conversation about responsibility.”
 
Jesus says it this way, “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.”  It’s not a sin to have or seek rights.  It is a sin to seek to have the right to sin.  Therein is a part of our problem.  As Paul says in Galatians, “it is for freedom that Christ has set you free.”  If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  But, Paul says don’t use that freedom as an opportunity to serve the flesh.  This is our bondage.  We are bound to this desire to serve the flesh.
 
I was reading a book this week that described a family in Germany during the days of Hitler this week. The author talked about how one of the members of the family had decided that he should move to Israel in the early thirties—if I recall correctly.  Just after the time of Kristallnacht, however, he had some connection in Hitler’s government who notified this man that his family was on the list to be arrested for their Judaism.  If he would return and take them with him to Israel, this connection would ensure the entire family had safe passage.  When the man went to get the family, however, they wouldn’t go.  They denied that things would be that bad for them.  They saw Israel as grimy and dirty, and below them.  They didn’t want to leave behind the wonderful life that they had in Berlin, with all of its comforts and seeming security.  Sadly, the man had to leave without any of his family.  They were blind, they were enslaved to their position.
 
This is us in sin.  This is us as the devil divides us.  This is us as we seek rights to sin rather than responsibility in serving our neighbor.  And this all points to the enslavement that we have under sin, under death, under the devil.
 
But Christians, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  And He has.  We have all of the ways we see the bondage around us, but the resounding message of Jesus is that you have been set free.  Your eyes may not tell you that.  But the strong word of Jesus promises it to you.  It promises you that as Jesus has died for your sin, you have been forgiven, freed from its debt.  It promises that very body and blood given and shed for you on the cross comes and touches your lips that you may taste and see the freedom.  It promises you that as Christ has been raised your bondage to death has been overcome because He will raise even your body from the grave.  It promises you this as you were joined to His resurrection in baptism.  That strong word promises that as Christ has done all of this, and has ascended to the right hand of the Father, Jesus now reigns with all authority in heaven and earth.  That means that this devil who is waiting will wait in vain for you.  He will wait in vain for you because you have been freed.  You have been purchased, your life is now found in Christ.
 
As we celebrate the Reformation today, Christians—Lutherans!—that is what we’re celebrating: freedom.  We aren’t celebrating Luther in and of himself this day.  No.  We are celebrating that freedom of the Gospel.  We are celebrating that this devil who would try to impede that word, would attack it, bind us, and divide us, this old evil foe, now not only means deadly woe but knows deadly woe himself from that Christ who holds the field forever; the Christ who saves us by His grace alone, through faith in Him alone. Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.  This morning we meditate on the Gospel Lesson previously read.
 
“This Jesus is blaspheming!  Look at it!  Here He is and He’s saying that He can forgive sins.  Did you hear it?  He told this man who needs healing that the man’s sin is forgiven!”
 
When you picture it, you can put yourself in the shoes of the Pharisees and picture what they’re thinking.  Here’s this man and He’s making the audacious claim that He can forgive sins.  How can He say this?  And as we’re in their shoes we have to ask, what about the temple?  Think about it.  Here these Pharisees still lived in the day where there was the superstructure in Jerusalem.  The Temple, the place where all of Israel was understood to be called to bring their offerings and their sacrifices.  And what happened there every morning and every evening?  The priests brought their sacrifices to the altar there.  They brought burnt offerings, grain offerings, drink offerings.  To what end?  For the forgiveness of sins!  And why?  Because that is what God had told them to do!  When God had spoken from the Mount of Sinai, He gave them this instruction.  There was the Ark of the Covenant, that was in the Holy of Holies, then you had the Holy Place which the priest was to enter bringing prayers for Israel as these sacrifices were made.  And it was the priest’s job to bring Israel before God in that prayer, to bring them before God for what?  For God’s blessing, for God’s care, for God’s forgiveness.
 
But here is this man disrupting that.  Now, where is God bringing this forgiveness?  Well, apparently wherever this Jesus wanted.  And the Pharisees may even have been thinking that if this guy says He can do it, what about that guy there, and that random Joe, or random Levi, or random Nathaniel.
 
Of course, as we look at this, we get it, right?  We get that Jesus is proving He can do it.  I mean, it’s not like every Joe, Levi, or Nathaniel was performing miracles, was it?  It’s not like they were telling these paralytics their sins were forgiven and the paralytics were getting up and walking.  I guess, we don’t know if there were others who were claiming that forgiveness, but we know it wasn’t happening like this if they were.  But that should make us ask the question.  What’s the connection between this forgiveness and the healing?  Jesus clearly intends to heal this man, yet He doesn’t tell the man to get up and walk until after He’s already told him that his sin is forgiven.  That means that focus of the conversation is the forgiveness.  Why?
 
I’m guessing a lot of you know already, but what it is it?  Why was this man paralyzed?  Why is anyone paralyzed?  Sin, right?  And we don’t mean a specific sin.  It doesn’t matter if this guy was paralyzed because he disobeyed his parents when he was a kid and jumped off the top level of their house.  It doesn’t matter if he got drunk one night and fell off his camel riding home from the tavern.  It doesn’t matter if he just sadly had something like some kind of palsy.  We mean that this came because of sin in general.  That’s why we become paralyzed.  That’s why we suffer.  That’s why we die.  That’s why this man couldn’t move.  Sin.  The brokenness of this world under the curse that has come because we have rebelled against the God who is our love and who is our life.  And when sin is the problem, what is the solution?  Forgiveness.  Thus Jesus’ declaration that this man’s sin is forgiven.
 
But what is Jesus really saying?  Look at His words, “that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins?”  He’s saying this that the Pharisees, that you would know what authority He has.  He has the strength, the power, the ability, the right even to declare sins forgiven.  And take a minute to think about that.  If I do something to harm you, who has the authority to forgive me in that case?  Only you, right?  Only the person who has been offended is the one who can forgive.  When Jesus says that He can forgive sins, He’s putting Himself in the place of the One who has been offended, which means He is putting Himself in the place of God.
 
Now, you know we get the extra insight, don’t we?  We say, “Of course Jesus can put Himself in the place of God!”  Why?  Because He’s God!  And how do we know that this man is God in the flesh?  Because that’s what the Church has always taught.  Because that’s what the New Testament tells us.  His Name is Immanuel, His Name is God with us.  His Name is Jesus because He will save His people from their sin.  And how do we ultimately know?  Because everything He said was confirmed.  It wasn’t just confirmed like we see it in this healing here.  It wasn’t just that Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven,” and this paralytic walked.  No.  The Father confirmed this work of His Son by raising Him from the dead after He had died.  That’s where it all comes to a head.  In the resurrection, there we see the proof that everything this Nazarene said is true.  All the claims He made.  All the times He said that He had power and authority.  All the ways He claimed that God was His Father, all the ways He claimed standing that only God could claim.  They were all proved when the temple of His body was destroyed and He raised it again in three days.
 
I mentioned the temple earlier, about the forgiveness that was there.  Those of you who have been to or listened to the Wednesday morning Bible Class the last couple of weeks maybe heard the conversation about the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.  On that day, the High Priest would not only offer burnt offerings, drink offerings, grain offerings for the people.  On that day there would be a unique sacrifice.  A sacrifice not just brought to the Altar of Incense in the Holy Place.  No, on that day the High Priest would go behind the curtain and there would be the Ark of the Covenant.  And he would bring the blood of that sacrifice, first for his own sins, then for the sins of the people.  He would bring that blood to the Ark.  He would sprinkle it on the top of the Ark, the flat part of it, called the mercy seat.  And the people would wait.  They would wait to see the High Priest come out.  In fact, tradition even said that they would put a chain on the High Priest’s ankle in case he didn’t come out.  And what were they waiting for, why might he not come out?  He might not come out if the sacrifice wasn’t accepted, if the offering for his sins or the sins of the people was not received.  He wouldn’t come out because he would be dead, and there would not be forgiveness for the people.  The resurrection of Jesus was His coming out from behind the curtain.  His resurrection was the declaration that sin has been forgiven.
 
And in that resurrection, even your sin has been forgiven.  In that resurrection this Son of man who has authority on earth to forgive sins tells you this is true for you.  The paralysis of your sin has been forgiven and you are alive again in Him.  You are alive to love, to live, to serve in His life, His love, His service to you.  It may not always look like it, it may not always feel like it.  In fact, because we don’t deserve it, it often doesn’t look like it or feel like it. But we trust this Word over and against everything else in the world.  Over and against everything that would tell us that this man blasphemes.
 
I say that because think about our day how this is still blasphemy.  Of course, it’s blasphemy in a totally different way than it was for the Pharisees.  The Pharisees said this man putting Himself in the place of God was blaspheming, He was blaspheming by claiming such authority for Himself.
 
On the one hand we can make a direct connection to the call of a pastor.  Think about what I say at the beginning of every service.  “As a called and ordained servant of the Word, I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  Have you ever had a conversation with a protestant friend about that?  They likely brought up this passage.  Or maybe you have though it yourself.  Am I blaspheming every Sunday?  If it weren’t properly understood it could appear that way.  However, I totally agree.  Only God, only Jesus has the authority to forgive your sins.  When I say I’m doing it, I’m not forgiving you from the authority of my person.  I have no authority to do that.  No I’m doing it out of the authority of my office, of my call.  I’m doing it by the authority of our Lord Jesus who says, “Anyone’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven.  If you withhold the sin of anyone, it is withheld.”  What’s that mean?  I’m not doing it.  I’m merely Jesus’ lowly servant speaking His forgiveness to you.  Yet He still promises to work.  He still promises that the same authority the bespoke light into the universe at the creation bespeaks you righteous.  Hopefully you grasp the comfort and the beauty of that certainty, Christian!  But by many that’s considered blasphemous.
 
It’s also considered blasphemous by many that the forgiveness of sins would be needed at all.  I’ve mentioned before how there’s an understanding that some social observers have come to that says that when you look at the beliefs of people in our culture, you could actually call it Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  Many of these people even claim to be Christian, but they’re belief isn’t really.  They believe that God isn’t really that involved in daily life, a sort of Deism.  They believe that God’s role is just to help us feel better.  We pray to feel better, we seek Him when we need to feel better, and that’s what He does.  Finally they believe that God saves people in light of a general morality.  What’s that mean?  It means that we earn our way to heaven.  Really, it doesn’t matter who you believe God is, what you believe about Him—or for that matter if you will, her, or it—just as long as you believe generically in a God and try to be good you’ll go to heaven.  Is there sin?  Maybe, but it’s not that bad.
 
As I say this, this really is pervasive.  Teaching my classes at Concordia have proved this.  I talk about this Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and a large number of the students think this is what I am saying when I talk about Christianity.  What’s the point?  It’s blasphemy to say that we have to believe in the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s blasphemy to say that we would not deserve for Him to take us heaven because we try hard enough.  It’s not blasphemy to say that Jesus is loving, that Jesus cares, but it is to say that the only way we can have communion with God is in view of the forgiveness that Jesus won for us on the cross and that He delivers to us in baptism, in absolution, in His Word, in His Holy Supper.  That’s all blasphemy.
 
But again, Christians, I hope you see the comfort of our faith in contrast to the world.  I’m sure you do and that’s why you’re here.  But let it sink in.  The comfort for the Pharisees, if they looked at the temple.  That’s gone.  It hasn’t been there since 70 A.D.-something as Christians we have to see as connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus.  If they looked to their own works, where is the comfort?  If we look to Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, it’s the same.  If we ever look to ourselves, it’s the same.  There is no comfort.  It’s gone.  But this One accused of blasphemy.  When we look at Him, there is all the comfort in the world.  Really the comfort of heaven and earth.  It’s the comfort of the One who was raised showing forth that your sin is forgiven, it’s dealt with.  It’s buried in His tomb.  And in His life you live forever.  Dear Christians rejoice in this.  It’s not blasphemy, it’s the greatest gift of God.  Amen!

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.  This morning we meditate on the Gospel Lesson, previously read.
 
One Sabbath, when [Jesus] went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.  You could say they were watching Jesus like a hawk.  Or as I was reading about this, one of the dictionaries I read said that Aristotle used this same word about eagles.  He said that eagles would sit in view of the water, and as waterfowl would dive to get their food, the eagles would watch them like this until they would reemerge from their dive.  Then the eagles would dive bomb their pray and eat them.  These Pharisees are watching Jesus like this eagle, seeking how they can dive bomb Him and devour His credibility.
 
Now take a second and think about that.  These Pharisees are watching the Author of Life that they could trap Him in some way and make Him look bad.  Of course, we can talk about the ability to be sympathetic.  We can talk about how it’s sad that they didn’t recognize who this was in their presence and the consequences that would come because of that.  We can also relate to how we don’t heed our Lord either.  But it doesn’t matter.  None of that matters, because it doesn’t get much more arrogant than that does it?  Arrogance doesn’t much surpass the thought that one can watch over God in order to catch Him in doing something wrong.
 
But before we go there, it’s probably good to understand this a bit more.  To understand the Pharisees a little bit.  What’s this watching all about?  Well, you all know the command to remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy.  You likely remember also that when the Lord gave the command to Moses on the Mountain, it was grounded in the fact that God rested on the Seventh Day of creation.  God created in six days, and rested, so also the Israelites were to rest on that Seventh Day.  And that Pharisees as they liked to make sure they kept all of the commandments to a T had determined just how much work one could really do and still keep the Sabbath rest.
 
Now to be sure if they just had their way of keeping the Sabbath and that was how they did it, that would be fine.  You know, just like it’s OK for us to say that we have our way of observing the Divine Service, where today we’re following Setting 3, the old TLH setting, and that’s good.  But if we would say you HAVE to do that setting for the service or you didn’t actually keep the Sabbath holy, that would be a problem.  That would be making a tradition of man a command of God.
 
That’s what the Pharisees are doing.  They’re watching Jesus like eagles that they can devour Him if He steps over their rules for keeping the Sabbath.  They’re waiting to pounce on Him like lions if He doesn’t show Himself to be doing what they think He should do.
 
And why is this?  What’s going on for them to do this?  Well, what’s hard is that they are probably justifying it to themselves by saying that they are trying to defend God.  They’re maybe trying to make sure that this teacher isn’t going to teach people wrongly.  But what’s really happening?  Really they’re just trying to make themselves look good.  They’re just trying to show off how holy and pious they are, and just how miserably this Jesus stacks up against their piety.
 
And why do they want to do that?  Think about it.  I think you all can relate.  We’ve all been in that spot where we want the world and everyone in it to know just how right we are, haven’t we?  If you can’t relate personally, which I’m sure you can, then just think about what we see on social media these days.  There it is, the great court of social media.  The land where you can get instant gratification for your ingenious ideas, and utter justification for all of the ways that you are right.
 
I was talking this week to someone who made that point.  He said he wished that we could totally do away with social media.  And apart from the fact that we’re able to get our sermons and devotions out on YouTube and Facebook, and the like, I totally agree.  Sure, there are some good things these platforms provide, especially when it comes to the spreading of the Gospel.  But otherwise they’ve exploded into the mass means of self-justification.
 
Well the Pharisees didn’t have Facebook, but they wanted the same thing.  They wanted ultimately to make themselves out to be better than Jesus so they could be justified.  And Jesus knows their hearts, so He saw right through it, didn’t He?  And what does He do?
 
Well look at the scenario.  There are the Pharisees watching Jesus, and He knows it.  Then the man with dropsy comes.  And what does Jesus do?  Well, we know He heals the man.  But first what does He do?  He asks them a question to test them back.  “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”  And you can see the Pharisees are stuck.  How do they respond?  I mean this isn’t on their list of 39 apparently accepted categories of works on the Sabbath.  Their lists said, “you can take x number of steps, and do y to prepare food,” but I don’t think they said, “you can also perform one miracle but no more.”  So how do they respond?  Well it’s not on their list, and yet they know that this man needs care.  If they say it’s not permissible, that’s unloving, but if they say it is, what about their list?  There’s no way out and they know it, so they are silent.
 
And so Jesus answers it for them.  He says, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”  The reality is that they all would, and they all know it.  Sometimes you just have to put the list aside for a minute and deal with people according to grace.  But they want to be right, they want to look good, and so they don’t answer.
 
As I say that, then, you all know one of the things we talk about a lot is Law and Gospel.  We talk about the Law as commands, as the Word from God which shows us our need for His forgiveness and mercy, and the Gospel as that mercy in Jesus.  This question was some of the greatest of Law.  How so?  Because it shuts them up and holds them accountable.  It takes away every ability for them to justify themselves.  You see that’s what the commands do.
 
I am teaching our confirmands this right now.  We’re in Romans chapter 3.  I’m guessing most of you don’t recall that whole chapter, but you’re probably familiar with 3:23-24: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  Well, just before that, Paul has been talking about how none of us are good, about how no one does good, no one seeks God.  And then he says, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”  In other words, these commands come and they take away your ability to talk and justify yourself.  It’s just like when kids get in trouble and they want to give every reason as to why it’s someone else’s fault and the parent says, “stop it.  Just stop.”  The Law does that to us.
 
And that’s what Jesus is doing to the Pharisees.  Do you think that He’s really trying to make the point that they should add healing to their list of works on the Sabbath?  No.  And you can see it by where He goes from there with the seating at the tables.  This is about humility.  This about the humility to hear what the Law says, what the commandments say, and for them to quit making themselves look good by it, but instead shut their mouths, humble themselves and see their need for the Messiah.
 
And that’s for us to hear too.  Think about all of the ways you like to be right.  There are all the temptations that we experience in the court of opinion on things like social media, but there’s a lot more, isn’t there?  There are the ways you look down on others for their sins.  There are the ways you look down on others for their lack of devotion and their lack of love.  And with that there is the justification that you seek.
 
In fact, that seeking of justification goes way beyond looking down on others.  You want to be justified in the eyes of others in so many ways.  You want the affirmation that others give.  You want them to look at you and see you for being so put together, and so good, and so right.  And the law says to you that you aren’t and it crushes you.  And that hurts.  Why does it hurt?  Because it’s humiliating.
 
But Christian, you have the One who was humiliated for you.  When it says that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” who was the most humble of all?  Who was so humble, His birth was in a barn?  Who was so humble, He gave up the riches of an eternal kingdom to suffer for you?  Who was so humble, He took your place, dying for your failings, for your shame, for your sin?  And who was so humble He willingly took this death naked, nailed to a cross for all to see?
 
Obviously, you know the answer.  But that’s the glory of this truth.  He has died to be your justification.  You want to have your justification before other people.  You want to look good for them.  In fact, God has even made you to hear a voice of affirmation.  But He has made you to hear His voice of affirmation.  That voice which says, “I have so loved you that I have given my only Son that you would have eternal life.”  In other words, that voice which says, you haven’t earned this, but I am so gracious and loving, I give it to you because my Son has earned it for you.  And that is what He tells you as He absolves you, returning you to the promise of His grace first given you in your baptism.  That’s what He tells you when He says to you, “Take eat, this is the body of Christ.  Take drink, this is the blood of Christ.”  Quit worrying about justifying yourself, quit worrying about making yourself look better than others, quit worrying about being right.  Instead rest in His righteousness, His justification won for you on the cross, and the promise of His eternal life in the resurrection.  These are yours, on the Sabbath, don’t be Pharisees seeking to rest by checking off the list.  Seek to rest in Him, because that is fullest rest of all.  Amen.