Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30 The Finest Yokes
Our lesson for today contains a verse that many of us need to take to heart. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Jesus is describing many of us. He knows our situation. Tired. Stressed out. Worried. Our nerves on edge.
We’re like an old Peanuts comic strip. It shows Linus holding on to his familiar blanket. The caption reads, “Only one yard of flannel stands between me and a nervous breakdown.” Some of you know what Linus is talking about.
A young mother was describing a terrible day she had experienced. The washing machine broke down, the telephone kept ringing, her head ached, and the mail brought her a bill she had no money to pay. Almost to the breaking point, she lifted her one-year-old into his highchair, leaned her head against the tray, and began to cry. Without a word, her son took his pacifier out of his mouth and stuck it in hers.
It goes with the pressures of modern life. Some of us are stressed out and we are tired. Studies show we’re working harder than ever. Many of us are not getting enough sleep. This is true for young people as well as adults – even those among us who are retired and supposedly living a life of leisure.
Jesus says to all of us,
28 "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 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.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."Matthew 11:28-30
That’s encouraging, isn’t it? But what does it mean?
Most of you can visualize the kind of yoke Jesus had in mind. But just in case, I included a picture in the bulletin this morning. A yoke is a kind of crossbar with two U‑shaped pieces that encircled the necks of a pair of oxen.
The easiest interpretation of this text is that when we are yoked to Jesus, he walks beside us and helps us bear our burdens.
We don’t have to bear the weight of our world by ourselves. That is the obvious teaching, and it is a beautiful teaching. But there are many ways in which being yoked to Christ gives us rest.
The first thing that I want to remind you of is this; that there are other forms of fatigue more draining than physical fatigue. Mental fatigue and emotional fatigue can wear on us far more than physical fatigue.
In 1863, the War Between the States was raging and the end was far from sight. Abraham Lincoln was out for a ride with his friend and aide Noah Brooks. Brooks, noticing the president’s obvious fatigue, suggested that he take a brief rest when they got back to the White House.
“A rest,” Lincoln replied, “I don’t know about a rest. I suppose it’s good for the body, but the tired part of me is inside and out of reach.”
Lincoln was acknowledging a very important truth. There are many sources of fatigue. And physical fatigue may be the most benign. There is the fatigue that comes from stress. Fatigue that comes from worry. Fatigue that comes not only from worrying about the future, but also worrying about the past. Fatigue that comes from keeping up that false front and trying to be something we are not.
Physical fatigue, unless overdone, helps us sleep peacefully at night. Emotional and mental fatigue actually keeps us awake. That’s when we get really, really tired.
Pastor Lloyd John Ogilvie, who is a Presbyterian minister and was Chaplin of the Senate from 1995 – 2003, tells a delightful story about speaking to a group of adults in his church. This group met in the home of one of the members. In order to express a warm welcome to their pastor for speaking to their group, the class reserved a special parking place for Ogilvie’s car. A beautiful, gothic‑lettered sign read, “Please reserve for Dr. Ogilvie.”
After his talk, Ogilvie’s host suggested he take the sign with him. Graciously accepting the offer, Dr. Ogilvie put the sign in his car. The next morning when he left home early for a breakfast meeting, a humorous idea popped into his mind. His wife, Mary Jane, was still asleep. He crept back into the house, went to their bedroom, and without waking her, put the sign in their king-sized bed, “Please reserve for Dr. Ogilvie.” When she found the sign, she called him at his office laughing. She was glad, she said, that a place in their bed was reserved for him.
Sometime later, after a night in which he found it difficult to sleep because of some concerns that he had, his wife added eight words to the sign and put it in the bed while he showered the next morning. When he returned to the bedroom, this was the message he read on that sign: “Reserved for Dr. Ogilvie – to sleep trusting the One who never sleeps!”
“I got the point!” said Dr. Ogilvie. “I had taken over the Lord’s job description. I was doing God’s work when I should have been sleeping in preparation for a new day.
I would need to be rejuvenated to tackle all the concerns – with God’s help.”
Pastor Ogilvie had been reminded of an important point about turning his worries over to God.
There are other sources of fatigue more draining than physical fatigue and our faith in Christ helps us deal with these more serious causes of fatigue.
For example, when we are yoked to Jesus we no longer have to prove to the world that we belong. Many of us have a vast insecurity in our hearts about our own self worth. This insecurity can make every task we handle more difficult. We may find ourselves expending an enormous amount of energy trying to prove to others and to ourselves that we are good enough.
Some of you may have seen the Johnny Cash movie, Walk the Line. Do you know his life story? When Cash was 12-years-old his older brother died in a tragic accident. Cash’s father took his grief out on Johnny. “Death took the wrong boy” his father told him time and time again. His brother was the good boy. He should have lived. Johnny was the bad boy. If anyone should have died, it should have been Johnny.
No wonder Johnny Cash spent so many years acting out his rage and his feelings of being “no good.” Can you imagine a parent doing that to their child?
No wonder that, for many years of his life, Johnny Cash engaged in self-destructive behavior. It’s a wonder he survived at all. But isn’t it great that, by the end of his life, Johnny Cash discovered a Heavenly Father who accepted him just as he was.
Cash’s situation may have been extreme, but there are many people who feel for one reason or another that they do not belong, that their life has little value.
Many people feel that they are failures who can never measure up. I can relate to this line of thought. I had a mother who loved me, but was incredibly critical. When she spoke such critical words, she thought that she was helping me. The first time that Dawn met my mother, she later asked why mom was so negative – and I had no idea what she was talking about, I had become so accustomed to it. Issues of self esteem are still a battle for me.
This kind of internal battle puts an incredible amount of strain on us as we try to measure up to expectations that we cannot possibly live up to. These efforts produce both stress and fatigue. To be able to relax and be ourselves is one of the greatest benefits our faith gives us.
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who suffered bouts of extreme melancholy, apparently due to a difficult upbringing. One day he wrote in his Journal, “And now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.”
What a liberating thought: “And now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.” Not what others expect me to be. Not some unrealistic image I have of myself. No, with God’s help I shall become who I really am. No more stressful pretenses. No more misguided strivings. I will relax and I will be me.
When we feel accepted by Christ, then for the first time in our lives we become free. When we are yoked to Jesus, we no longer have to prove to the world that we belong.
When we are yoked to Jesus, we know that we are loved, accepted, forgiven.
It is amazing how much inner turmoil can be eliminated from our lives when we know that we are loved, that we are accepted, that we are forgiven.
In 1971, a man named Gavin Bryars was living in London, England. He was working with a friend on a documentary about homeless people living in a rough area near a train station in London. Most of these people had their lives ravaged by alcohol and drugs. They now lived in desperate conditions. The film makers wanted to tell their story.
Sometimes, during the making of the documentary, these forlorn and forgotten people would “ham it up” for the cameras. They would break into drunken singing. Sometimes, says Bryars, you would hear bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads.
However, one homeless old man who, in fact, did not drink, says Gavin Bryars, was singing something else. And Bryars caught his song on tape. It turned out the old man was singing a simple religious song that went like this, “Jesus’ blood never failed me yet, Never failed me yet, never failed me yet. This one thing I know, for he loves me so.”
This homeless man may have had nothing else in his life, but he held to one critical piece of hope --- that Jesus had died for him, that Jesus loved him regardless of who he was or what he had done, that he was loved, accepted, forgiven.
My friends, are you lying awake at night worrying about your future, worrying about your past, wondering whether you measure up, wondering whether you are loved, accepted, forgiven?
Let it go & Let God. Let it go . . . at the foot of the cross. There is one who loves you, one who died so that you may live.
There is an ancient legend that says that, in the region of Galilee two thousand years ago, all the farmers knew where to get the finest yokes for their oxen. There was a certain carpenter in Nazareth famed for shaping and smoothing the wood so that the burden on their oxen would be as light as possible.
Christ is still in the business of fashioning yokes to ease the burdens of his weary children. As you come to His table this morning, remember that Jesus still says to His people today – He still says to you and me -------
28 "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 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.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
