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If it seems like Christmas only creates extra burdens in your life, that isn't by design. When God's prophet Isaiah spoke about the birth of Jesus, he said, "You have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders." Today we see that Jesus came to shatter the burden of blindness. When we look at the evidence, it seems as though it would never be possible for God our Father to say about us what he said about Jesus: “With you I am well pleased.” When we look at our lives, all we see is sin. But today we celebrate the fact that God doesn’t simply tell us we are forgiven, he attaches that promise to a visible act: baptism. Just as Jesus received the Spirit’s blessing and the Father’s approval at his baptism, so do we at ours.