Burden and Yoke

I try to be careful, and as often as I can think about it, only ask “How are you doing today?” when I really am offering myself to listen if the other person wants to unload a burden.

And where might you or I turn if we wanted to acquire such an attitude?

Let's look at our Lord Jesus when he speaks in today's Gospel reading: “Come to me, all who are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.”

“Take it to the Lord in prayer” counsels the old gospel song, and it is not romantic triteness, but truth.

As we engage in that conversation with God... and not just the “Thank you Lord for all the goodies” part of the conversation,

but when we speak as does the Psalmist so often: O Lord, my enemies surround me on every side. They laugh me to scorn.” ...and on and on the Psalmist lays out part of the realities of his life before the Lord.

But who are these enemies?

1 We may think of specific persons, indeed.

But also there are other kinds of enemies:

2 --cancer and other grave illnesses qualify,

3--hunger and thirst bedevil many in the world,

4--the powers of storm and flood weigh heavily on families in our land and around the world these days,

5—the burdens built by those who pile up ever more rules in order to be righteous, without offering any assistance in keeping them,

6—the burdens carried by those who do not know the grace of the Lord Jesus, either willfully or through ignorance,

7—in summary, the burdens carried by those who suffer the frustrations of living in an imperfect world.

8--But the greatest enemy is sin, the separation from God that leads only to death.

This is the most formidable enemy of all.

“Come to me,” says Jesus, “and I will give you rest.”

And oh, do we need rest from all of those enemies!

An old pastor gave this observation to a young pastor just starting out:

“We will never know just how many burdens folks are carrying when they struggle in here on Sunday morning!”

It is true.

Behind many a “fine, just fine” is a situation not “fine” at all!

One of our Stephen Ministers told me how after her care receiver had given the “Fine, just fine” response, she just waited a bit, and soon, they were talking about things that were not fine.

She took the time to patiently listen until the truth was expressed.

I remember how shocked I was back in high school the first time I read a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson called “Richard Cory”.

It describes a man who everyone thought was the perfect gentleman, for whom everything was “just fine.”, who

...one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Oh, the burdens that we carry, carefully hidden away!

We may think that we need to put a brave face on it all, but the reality is that there are a long list of enemies with whom we wrestle day after day.

And there may well be those times when we cannot see how we are going to keep them at bay, let alone defeat them.

“Come to me, and I will give you rest.” says Jesus.

Now, just a minute!

Wasn't it just two weeks ago that Jesus was telling us how hard it was going to be: “If any would be my disciples, let them take up their cross and follow me.”?

Didn't he tell us then that it might involve divisions within our own family, and hardship of many sorts?

Is Jesus demonstrating two different personalities in these two passages?

It might be easier for us to have the one saying from Jesus without the other.

I don't find it particularly fun or enjoyable to speak of cross-bearing, to point out sin, to suggest courses of action that are good but not easy.

I could easily skip the talk about how we use or fail to use the resources that God entrusts to our care.

We could just pretend that things are just fine with us all.

But it wouldn't be true.

The burdens are real, and weighty.

But the respite offered by Jesus is even more real, because it is permanent.

The old spiritual is to the point:

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.
Nobody knows but Jesus.

Sometimes I'm up. Sometimes I'm down.
Sometimes I'm almost to the ground.
Now you may think that I don't know,
But I've had my troubles here below.
One day when I was walkin' along,
The sky opened up and love came down.

What makes old Satan hate me so?
He had me once and had to let me go.

I never shall forget that day,
When Jesus washed my sins away.

The knowledge of the great promises given by Jesus provides the rest that we need.

The knowledge that it is not all up to us,

--that ultimately the Lord God is in charge of things,

--that God gets the last word even in the most miserable and complicated situations in which we are entangled...

these truths are what change the way we see the world around us.

These truths point to Jesus, taking our burdens to death on the cross, and rising to new life and bring us with him.

What a relief! The things about which all we can do is worry, are taken by Jesus, and transformed into opportunities for the new creation to break in.

It is for this reason that cancer-patient Ken Curtis can say that he believes that even the dreaded time of cancer can be a grace-filled day.

Jesus carries us.

You've most likely done this with a small child who really wants to help move a heavy piece of furniture, but is completely incapable of rendering meaningful assistance.

So the little tyke grabs one corner and you grab the middle and truly carry the whole weight while the little one is worrying over his attempt to carry the one little corner.

We worry lots, but Jesus does the heavy lifting.

Now as to the matter of the yoke.

We're not talking about a funny line,

or the yellow part of an egg,

but rather a wooden beam shaped to hook two animals together for pulling a great weight.

No one lives without a yoke.

Either take Jesus' yoke where he does all the hard work and our big job is to say thanks,

or else take on some other yoke that destroys freedom, peace, and rest.

It is dead weight because we have to carry it all by ourselves; we are yoked to nothing but our own worries and problems.

Why do we want to put up with that?

Hear the Good News of this day:

you and I do not have to prove anything about our ultimate worth;
that burden is taken by Jesus who says “You, sinner, are mine!” Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.