The Yoke Of Grace

Matthew 11: 25-30

At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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 hard to pinpoint the most beautiful words Jesus ever spoke because many of his words were words of extravagant love and mercy. We’re so used to hearing all the things Jesus said in the gospels that we often don’t stop to really allow these words of soft Kingdom rain to soak into our dry cracked hearts to soften the soil and make us ready to receive the seeds of his life and love.

“Come to me…” I am often struck by the fact that we have a God who says, “Come to me.”  It’s easy to become confused and think we have a God who shouts, “Get over here right now! What do you think you’re doing?”  One evening a friend and I were out for a walk when a dog went ripping past us, its leash trailing behind it. The owner came running after it in a panic because it was a busy street and the dog was obviously frightened, running as fast as it could without being aware of its surroundings. The owner, in his own panic, was yelling the dog’s name and shouting for it to “…stop and get over here NOW!!” This just frightened the dog even more. Suddenly the owner came to his senses, stopped, knelt down on the grass and completely changed his tone of voice. He kept all panic and anger out of it, became comforting and friendly and called the dog’s name. The dog immediately stopped its frightened frantic racing, turned around and ran to its master. You could sense the dog’s relief in finding the calm security of its owner. If we could stop and really listen we would realize God’s not yelling at us. He is on his knees inviting us to come back to his safe arms.

“…all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens” Let’s see, who does that leave out? Who is excluded from this invitation? I actually sat for a few minutes and thought about all the people I know and I couldn’t think of one person who is completely outside the category of ‘All Who are Weary and Burdened’. It’s a human condition. Sometimes the weariness and burdens are deeper and heavier than at other times but Jesus knew all the difficulties of walking in this world. He knew weariness and the feeling of being overwhelmed. He was accustomed to the burden of being human and understood what a challenge it is to figure out relationships, to juggle complicated situations, to bear the brunt of injustice, to lose a loved one to death or to watch a child make terrible choices. He walked our lives and faced our fears.

Therefore, the words, “I will give you rest,” were spoken and continue to be spoken with huge compassion. “I will give you rest.” Not, “I might give you rest if you are good and you deserve it.”  ‘Will’ is a strong word. When someone says, “Yes, I will…” to us, we take that as a promise and believe it but only if we discern that the person is capable of delivering what is promised. When we hear Jesus say, “ I will,” our initial reaction is to think, “Of course he will.” But, if we examine our hearts, we often find traces of doubt there. We try to have faith that he will do what he said he would do but it’s so easy to find just a smidgen of skepticism arising from times when it seemed like he didn’t do what we thought he would or should do.  Does that means he can't be relied upon? No, what it means is that we have definite ideas of what he should do in any given situation. It means we have interpretations as to what his promise keeping should look like. It means we want things to go a certain way and we're not always open to his wisdom. When Jesus says, “I will” he also says, “My will.” We need to understand that he did not ever promise to conform to our wills or to our ideas of how things should go. And thank God for that because our ideas and visions are so shortsighted and limited. We really have no clue yet we still try to be God’s executive directors.

“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.” This is the key. When Jesus invites us to put his yoke on, he is saying, “Take this yoke. It’s exactly the same as the one I wear. It’s the yoke of a heart that is trusting, gentle and humble; it’s not the yoke of a heart that is fearful, controlling and demanding.” It’s in gentleness and humility that the heart finds rest. I definitely believe there are times when we do need to wrestle with the Lord but if we are always in a fearful demanding mode with the Lord and if our attitude is always, “Of course I know what’s needed in this situation, Lord. Any smart person would agree with me,” then we need to step back and ponder on what it means to be gentle with God. Jesus, in his gentleness and humility, trusted God moment by moment to supply his needs. He also trusted that God knew exactly what he needed and when he needed it. If he encourages us to wear the same yoke as he wore, there must be a beautiful and nourishing restfulness of soul within it.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Jesus was mostly contrasting his yoke to the yoke and the burden of dead law but the yoke of the law is not much different from the yoke of the world. It's the yoke of shouldering all responsibility for one’s broken human condition. It’s the burden of having nowhere to turn and nowhere to run but to self. It’s the load of feeling completely alone with no hope of being forgiven and loved no matter what. When we are weary of trying to be in control all the time and when we finally turn to Christ, gently and humbly saying, “I give up. I just can’t do this anymore,” we will indeed find that his burden is much lighter and that his yoke sits much more easily on the shoulders.

How can we turn to Christ with gentleness and humility? How can we unload the backbreaking yoke of sole responsibility? This is only possible when we stay in the present moment, deal only with what is in front of us in that moment while keeping our eyes on him just for that moment. If we refuse to allow our clamorous desires and fears to become chafing heavy yokes, we can become much more in tune with Christ’s quiet gentleness. This in turn creates within us a gentleness and quietness of spirit. 

We can maintain a humble spirit by remembering that we have no knowledge of what the future holds and by understanding that our perceptions of what could go wrong, what we need or what others need are terribly limited. When we assume we know what’s best or what’s wrong with everything or when we allow fear to settle on our shoulders, it creates within us frantic and aggressive prayer that brings no rest for our souls. Without realizing it, we often pray as if God won’t know what is necessary unless we tell him.

Remember, the easy yoke and the light-filled burden is completely available to us in the present moment. He has never asked us or wanted us to carry the burden of the future or of the past. His yoke of grace is now. His burden of light is here. Go to him and receive.

He is on his knees, arms wide open.