Title and
Other images courtesy of Pixabay.com
“My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father,
and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son
chooses to reveal him.” Then
Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and
gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:27-30
You might recall Alice
in Wonderland is a children's story.
If you recall it in detail, you remember it is not a very pleasant
children's story. Alice falls through
the looking glass down a long dark place; all alone, she faces some very scary
and confusing circumstances.
The
difficulties Alice faced were fantasy.
Most of us will never be confronted with a Cheshire cat spouting riddles
with a toothy grin, or a nasty Queen of Hearts shouting off with your
head!
The wonder
in Wonderland is that same aloneness and desolation many of us felt when we saw
the World Trade Center collapse on 9/11, or, more recently, the frightening
experiences of children unsafe from a deranged shooter. Columbine and Uvalde are not necessarily in
our thoughts every day, but in times of common tragedy and anguish we recognize
the burden of Wonderland all too well.
All through Alice’s adventure she was
looking for direction, a road to travel.
Like Dorothy in the Land of Oz, there is the anticipation of rest and
home, if we can just get where we're going. Comfort and
peace can be in short supply when you need it most. There are so many experiences of life that
cause us to cry out, I just don’t understand! One preacher said about this inner need for
peace:
Strained by the very
mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward
uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and
deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace
and power. If only we could slip over
into that Center![1]
Have you
been there? Everyone who has sensed that
need for serenity has been at that place where rest seems like it will never
come again, as if the burden is all we’ve ever known. The pressure of life awakens us in the middle
of the night. Life can be hard!
In our text
we meet Jesus swimming in a culture of incredible opposition; the pressure was
intense:
· John the Baptist questioned Jesus.
· The crowds were dwindling
· Galilean cities were not responding
to even great miracles
·
and
the Pharisees were turning up the heat with political accusations.
And in the
middle of the heat of battle we find Jesus not only serene, but he is filled
with a calm and peace we’d expect as if he were home in the recliner, TV remote
in hand.
Jesus was the bedrock
of peace among a culture in turmoil.
Please
notice what happens when you take Jesus up on his offer:
You Get Rest when the Burdens are Overwhelming
In the
middle of a world gone mad with Roman Emperors tightening the screws, local
cheating tax collectors, rampant poverty and disease, and no relief in sight,
Jesus turns to the crowd of anxious, haggard, over-burdened, and worn-out
people and offers:
Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28
Weariness
and burdens…sound familiar? Life is
wonderful, but it does take its toll.
I read about
a woman who telephoned a friend and asked how she was feeling, Terrible,
came the reply over the wire, my head's splitting and my back and legs
are killing me. The house is a mess, and the kids are simply driving me crazy.
Very sympathetically the caller said: Listen,
go and lie down; I'll come over right away and cook lunch for you, clean up the
house, and take care of the children while you get some rest. By the way, how is Sam? Sam? the housewife gasped. My husband
isn’t named Sam. My heavens,
exclaimed the first woman, I must have dialed the wrong number. There was a long, quiet pause, and then the weary
mother asked, You’re still coming over, aren’t you?
Even though
burdens, life’s sorrows, and hard times are part of living, Jesus' offer to us
is to Come. That is
an invitation to come closer to Him, to connect to Him, so that the closer we
come to Jesus the less our burdens can hold us down.
Psalm 68:19
assures us, "Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our
burdens. Selah." It
is like the old hymn I learned as a child:
Cast your care on Jesus today, Leave your worry and fear;
Burdens are lifted at Calvary, Jesus is very near.[2]
That coming
near to Jesus, connecting to His grace, is vital. Without a vital connection to Jesus, an
intimate and personal fellowship, the so-called rest will
be a fraud.
We once had
a toaster that provided entertainment, rather than toast. It had a frayed wire. The sparks were like Disney's light parade. Electricity knows when you are not its'
master. I have a lot of respect for
electricity. But when I fixed that
toaster, it became like some of our things that didn't get professional
care.
The family
calls it a Dad-fixed thing. Whatever dad fixes is sure to come unglued,
undone, and certainly the results are unholy!
It is like
that with the Christian's walk with the Master.
Without a good connection we become short-circuited; there is no power,
our rest is a fraud, a fake! And, like
me with toasters, and anything else mechanical or electrical, there’s no fixing
it without a miracle.
When we come
to Christ, we offer Him our past life.
We place the sinful things we have done on that altar, asking for His
power to overcome those same temptations in the future. This is the kind of rest that recuperates
your whole being, and makes you fit for His service.
Our son
Jason was a Staff-Sergeant with the 35th Engineers in Mosul,
Iraq. He had been there 6 months on his
second tour. After dealing with the
stress of serving in a war zone for half a year his superiors said: Go take a rest. He took a plane to Germany and spent nearly 2 weeks
with his wife and daughters. R&R
was refreshing, but then he went back with the men in the field, to serve again. This is the rest Jesus promises; not a life
free from work or problems, but an oasis when you need it.
A good solid
connection demands that we daily put our life in His control by putting aside
the love of sin; THAT is a good connection! In the process, our burdens get lifted by the
Prince of Calvary.
Another
thing that takes place is…
Your Life Gets Balanced
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.” Matthew 11:29-30
Balance is a
matter of knowing and living by the right priorities. For the believer, there is only one balanced
priority: Whatever Jesus wants is
what I want.
Jesus says
to take His yoke, and to
learn by following in His
footsteps. There is (at least) some
apocryphal evidence that Jesus, the carpenter, made some of the best yokes in
Galilee. A good yoke is light, doesn’t
chafe while you work, and is balanced so the major load of the work is borne by
the lead person or animal.
Jesus’
footsteps were balanced. There were:
· times of intense prayer, balanced by
times to laugh when the children came running up to him.
· There was a time to heal, balanced by
a time to swing the whip in the temple.
·
There
was a time to eat, balancing a time to fast for forty days.
That is also
the balance a Christian warrior needs.
Taking his yoke means joining with Jesus; it also means understanding
that in His yoke, He is the leader.
· We serve, giving ourselves to Christ,
allowing Him to take control…and he lifts our burdens.
· We serve, putting ourselves in His
yoke, a place where He bears the leader’s weight.
So…What?
· What do we do about that?
· How shall we live our lives?
· How shall we apply this understanding
that coming close to Jesus means having our burden lifted; and that coming close
to Jesus means balanced lives?
I’d say the
conclusion is that we must spend our lives coming close, connecting with
Jesus. We must take the time to develop
putting on the gentle yoke; accepting the leadership of the Master.
Today many
of us may feel like Alice,
having fallen through the looking glass.
Muddled deep in:
· trials and temptations on every hand,
· a bill that is bigger than your
income,
· a relationship that just won’t work,
·
or
some mountain to climb that’s getting bigger each day
Whatever frenzy the
world throws at you, know this…His yoke
is easy; His burden is light! And
when you come close you find out that, as the songwriter put it, there is rest along the wearied way.
In the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen!
Blessing/Commissioning:
· Go from this place with your burdens
lifted, your soul rested
· Go from this place with your shoulder
well-fitted to the Master’s yoke, gentle and powerful.
· Go from this place to bless and serve
others in His name.
