Healing and Humility

Humility and Healing

The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity – 10/12/2025

Luke 14:1-11

Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Brademeyer

That portion of God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our lesson from the holy Gospel according to St. Luke in the fourteenth chapter with special emphasis on verse eleven which reads as follows:

                “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”[1]

Thus far the Scriptures.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are few situations in which self-exaltation and self-aggrandizing are considered acceptable. Indeed, it is almost always seen as being in bad form. You know the type. The person who talks a little too much about himself, who always manages to turn the conversation back to his own accomplishments, who wants to make sure you know how important he is. Such people quickly prove themselves insufferable.

And even if others play nice to keep face or because the self-important have social or business power, deep down, people do not enjoy being witness to this sort of arrogance.

More to the point, Jesus does not care for self-importance. He, who of all people has the greatest claim to honor and glory, did not conduct Himself in that way during His ministry. Instead, He chose the way of humility, simplicity, and service, even unto death for us sinners.

Antagonism Toward Jesus

The setting for our Gospel reading is the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. It is the Sabbath. Jesus has been invited to dinner, but this invitation is not an act of friendship. It is a trap. St. Luke tells us plainly: “They were watching Him carefully.” They are not watching because they admire Him. They are not watching because they want to learn from Him or receive His grace. They are watching because they hope He slips up, that He says something or does something that will justify their rejection of Him.

In their own eyes, the Pharisees were the religious elite. They were the respectable ones, the rule-keepers, the examples to follow. They believed themselves righteous, the kind of people God ought to be proud of. And so, when Jesus began teaching that God’s kingdom is received by faith alone, that sinners and tax collectors and the unclean are welcomed by grace, it offended them deeply. It always upsets self-important people to hear that salvation is by Christ and not by their own efforts.

When Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, they were scandalized. “Surely this cannot be the work of God,” they reason. “This man breaks our rules. He does not keep our traditions. He cannot be from heaven.” But what they fail to see is that the Lord of the Sabbath Himself stands before them. The One who created the Sabbath, who gave the commandment to keep it, now shows them its true purpose. The Sabbath was not established to enslave man with endless regulations, but to bring him into God’s rest, into mercy and healing and forgiveness.

Unfortunately, their pride blinds them. They would rather keep their system intact, that is their status secure, than admit they were wrong. They would rather stay in spiritual sickness than be healed by grace.

The arrogance of rejecting Christ did not die with the Pharisees. It lives on in the unbelieving world. Our culture, too, is obsessed with self-importance. One of the central ideas of this age is self-promotion. We curate our public image through social media. We measure worth by success, wealth, and popularity. We seek honor in the eyes of others. And one of the unforgivable mistakes, in the world’s view, is humility. “Believe in yourself,” we are told. “Be true to yourself. Speak your truth.” But if everyone is exalting himself, who is left to be humble before God?

The world still watches Jesus carefully, as the Pharisees did. Not to believe in Him, but to critique Him. His claim to be the only way to the Father is labeled narrow-minded, bigoted, and intolerant. His commandments are dismissed as old-fashioned or oppressive. His call to repentance is mocked as judgmental and harmful. But this is nothing new. Human pride cannot stand the humility of the cross. The world will tolerate a Jesus who is a moral teacher, or a spiritual example to be emulated, but not a Savior who must die for sinners.

But before we nod in agreement too quickly, we must recognize that the same pride that filled the Pharisees, the same pride that fills the world, lives also in each of us. It shows itself whenever we bristle at correction. Whenever we insist on being right. Whenever we silently compare ourselves to others in the pew and think, “Well, at least I’m not like that.”

Whenever we serve but only so that others notice and appreciate it. Pride is the enemy of repentance. Pride insists that we are doing just fine. Pride resists confessing sin because confession means admitting weakness, admitting failure, and admitting that we cannot save ourselves.

The truth is that we all like to take the seat of honor, maybe not literally, but certainly inwardly. We want others to think well of us, to recognize our goodness, our intelligence, our hard work. But the moment we start seeking that recognition, we have turned our eyes away from Christ and toward ourselves. And in so doing, we lose the Lord as we stare longingly at our own supposed magnificence.

And that is the great tragedy of pride: it pushes Christ away. The arrogant heart says, “I don’t need a Savior.” It tries to stand before God on its own merit. But before the throne of God, all self-exaltation must crumble. There is no boasting before the cross. For there, the Son of God, the only truly righteous One, humbled Himself to the lowest place. Pride exalts the self and leaves no room for Christ. But humility confesses, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And this sort of person is the kind that Christ lifts up in His mercy and grace.

Jesus’s Mission of Healing and Forgiveness

Now notice what Jesus does at that Sabbath meal. Before He teaches about humility, He first heals. There before Him is a man suffering from dropsy, a painful condition where the body swells with retained fluid. His limbs are swollen, his body heavy, his movement labored. He is likely there as bait, planted by the Pharisees to see if Jesus will break the Sabbath rule by healing. And Jesus does not avoid the test. He takes the man, heals him, and sends him away. He restores him in front of everyone.

Then Jesus turns to the Pharisees and asks, “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?” They have no answer. Of course they would help their own child. Of course they would rescue their animal. Yet they cannot rejoice that God Himself has rescued a man from suffering. Their hearts are hardened by pride and legalism. They care more about maintaining control than about mercy. But in doing this, Jesus shows what the Sabbath is truly for. It is not a day of restrictive, legalistic observance, it is a day of healing and grace. It is not about rules, it is about restoration of man with God, reconciled through grace poured out from the bloody wounds of Jesus on the cross.

The Sabbath points us to the rest that God gives. That is, the rest of being forgiven, the rest of knowing you are loved by Him, and the rest of salvation that Christ alone provides. When Jesus heals this man, He is preaching with His actions. This is what He has come to do; to lift up the broken, to free the bound, and to heal the sinner. He has come to give rest to the weary.

You and I are no different from that man with dropsy. We may not have this horrible health concern, our limbs may not be swollen and painful, but we are ill nonetheless. Our condition is spiritual. Our hearts are swollen with pride, weighed down with sin, and filled with desires and anxieties we cannot control. We cannot fix ourselves. We cannot make our hearts clean.

But Christ takes hold of us, as He took hold of that man, and heals us. He does not wait until we deserve it. He does not wait for us to get our act together. He acts first. He forgives first. He loves first. This is the Gospel! Christ, who took the lowest place of all, the cross, the tomb, the rejection of men, now lifts us up to the highest place, into the presence of the Father, clothed in His righteousness.

The Pharisees missed the point of the Sabbath because they missed the Lord of the Sabbath. But you, dear Christian, have been invited to the true feast. Every Lord’s Day, you are called to the table of Christ. Here you find the rest your soul needs.

To receive the Word of God preached and the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood are to participate in the true Sabbath. This is where God’s grace comes down to you. Here, Christ heals your conscience. Here, He forgives your sin. Here, He quiets your anxious heart and says, “Be at rest, My child. You are Mine.”

And so, we do not come to the Lord’s Table boasting in our goodness but confessing our need. We come as those who know we deserve the lowest place. And yet the Lord, in His mercy, says, “Friend, move up higher.” He raises you up, not to the seat of honor in the eyes of men, but to the seat of grace before God. You are honored, not because of what you have done, but because of what He has done for you.

This humility of Christ shapes how we live as His people. In a world obsessed with prestige, Christ’s Church is called to humility. In the Kingdom of God, the greatest are those who serve. The most honored are those who go unnoticed. The first are the ones who gladly take the last place.

So, in your home, in your congregation, in your work, take the lower seat. Seek not to be noticed, but to notice others. Seek not to be praised, but to praise. Seek not to be honored, but to honor.

This is the mind of Christ, “who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”[2] And because He humbled Himself, the Father highly exalted Him, and in Jesus, He exalts you.

Conclusion

At that Pharisee’s table, the guests were watching Jesus carefully. But really, it is Jesus who is watching them, even as He still is watching us. Unlike the Pharisees, He does not do so to condemn, but to redeem; not to shame, but to save. When He tells the parable of the wedding feast, He is not simply giving etiquette advice. He is revealing the posture of the Christian life.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

In the world, humility is seen as weakness. But in Christ’s kingdom, it is the way of glory.

You are not called to make a name for yourself; Christ has given you His name in Baptism. You are not called to climb higher; Christ has already lifted you up to the heavenly places. You are not called to prove your worth; Christ has declared you worthy by His death for you.

So come to His table today with empty hands and humble heart. Come, not demanding honor, but receiving grace. Come to the feast not as one who earned his place here, but as one whom the Host Himself has invited. For when Christ says, “Friend, move up higher,” He is speaking to you. He moves you from the place of sin to the place of forgiveness, from the seat of shame to the seat of honor, from death to life.

And one day, at the great and everlasting wedding feast of the Lamb, He will call you by name and say, “Come, sit in the place prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Until that day, rest in Him. Rejoice in His humility. And walk in His mercy toward others.

In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.

[1] Luke 14:11 English Standard Version. All further quotations from the Scriptures are from the ESV.

[2] Philippians 2:6-8