A yoke for the burdened?
A friend reminded me of the unlikely combination in Matthew 12:28-30:
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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."
It's interesting how Jesus juxtaposes the two ideas. Instead of telling us to lay down our burdens and rest, he encourages us to take up another. I love the way Jesus is never predictable!
Also the idea that taking his yoke is wrapped up in learning from him...learning to be gentle and humble? Or being able to learn from and trust him because he is gentle and humble?
And what are people's thoughts on the yoke he's talking about here?
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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."
It's interesting how Jesus juxtaposes the two ideas. Instead of telling us to lay down our burdens and rest, he encourages us to take up another. I love the way Jesus is never predictable!
Also the idea that taking his yoke is wrapped up in learning from him...learning to be gentle and humble? Or being able to learn from and trust him because he is gentle and humble?
And what are people's thoughts on the yoke he's talking about here?
posted by cfg at 11:27 pm
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3 Comments:
Yes, I think the key to this one is humility, too, actually.
If I think for a moment about what it is that "burdens" me most in life it is things that are related to status, keeping it and and acquiring it. There is the burden of my reputation, the weight of keeping up appearances, the trouble of concern for how others view me. These are the things that cause more mental anguish than many of the other things I might want to avoid. How much energy do I put into avoiding losing face, looking silly, being confused, appearing clueless, sidestepping pain or difficult things.
Jesus is crying out - and I really think it is a cry from his heart - that it is not necessary to have all this extra stress in life and if we chose his yoke, which I would describe as "the burden of meekness, embracing humility through suffering innocently as he did", then it kills all these other things we struggle with. Suddenly there is a heart attitude to let people think what they will and the opportunity to enjoy the freedom of not having to defend oneself.
It reminds me of the passage in "Pilgrims Progress" where Christian finds a very slippery and treacherous path down into a valley but once he gets there he finds it to be exceptionally beautiful and fertile. The valley is called "Humiliation" and the path into it is quite nasty. Time and again the saints have proved that it is more blessed to be a sheep than a wolf even though the wolf devours the sheep. I think this is only discovered by experience, though.
Thinking aloud as usual - hope this makes sense.
I guess it's a form of the (counter-intuitive) dichotomy that appears again and again... that submission to God (the yoke) will ultimately give freedom from the kind of burdens you describe.
I love the version in 'The Message':
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
Yeah - one of the main points is that what Jesus considers to be "heavy" is often different from what we consider "heavy" and vice versa.
I have found in life that most things I expect to be heavy turn out to be so light I wonder why I avoided them so much.
A good example might be repentance. It sounds like a big heavy thing to "repent" and often that is how we see it, but actually it is liberating gateway into those "unforced rhythms of grace".
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