"Come to me, all you
who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest."
We live in a rest-less society.
Too many people are carrying heavy, heavy burdens.
Our generation longs for peace ... for comfort ... for encouragement ... for rest.
This passage is an answer then to what ails our modern world. And this and the following verses give us a positive solution for our burdened longing too?
1. "Come to me" - The secret to peace in this weary world is coming to God the Son. The secret to "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness" is coming to God the Spirit. The secret to what ail us is coming to God, yielding our hearts to him, trusting him to carry our burdens -- and here's the key -- "with" us.
Now my first temptation was to suggest that God might carry our burdens "for" us. But that led me back to Jesus' next two verses, our next step is solving the restlessness of this generation. ...
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
To teach a young ox to pull a plow, farmers would pair him with an old ox. The veteran ox would set the pace, shoulder the brunt of the initial loads, and model a successful career on the farm.
2. The second step is to take Jesus' yoke upon us. We are invited to live like Jesus lived, to pray like the Master prayed, and to forgive like the Savior forgave. He is the veteran ox who shows us how to be fully human.
3. When Jesus says, "Learn from me," we need to adopt a humbleness in Spirit. We must yield our human ways and our pride, and adopt the road of a suffering servant.
4. And we need to not balk and bark about it -- or misgive and moo, if we're using cattle language. We need to trust that while being a suffering servant doesn't sound easy, this Jesus-way-of-life is a burden that is light. It is, indeed, the only true and authentic way of real life.
In Christ's Love,
a guy who doesn’t want to be yoked …
oh, wait, that’s “yolked” …
please don’t throw rotten eggs at me
(But yoke me with Jesus anytime)
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