July 7, 2002
The Rev. Dr. David M. Wendel
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest.
Are there any more comforting words in scripture, than these? These words are comforting, I think, because
more than anything else today, our culture and our generation and our
identities are marked by a profound sense of exhaustion, over-work,
weariness. Wayne Muller observes, in
his book titled simply, “Sabbath”, that whether he visits the very rich, the
very poor, or the very middle-class, the universal refrain of modern lives is,
“I am so busy.” He notes that we wear
our overwork and our exhaustion, almost as a trophy, and adds that “the Chinese
pictograph for ‘busy’, is composed of two characters: ‘heart’ and ‘killing’.”
The message is that our busy-ness, kills the heart. And doesn’t that just say it all? Putting aside, for a minute, the reasons
behind our weariness; the questions
that are raised by our compulsion to do, do, do, the truth is, we are weary. I’m convinced many of the rampant marital
problems we have, many of the strains in families, many of the troubles we
experience in life are caused, as much as anything, by not having (or taking)
enough time—to communicate with each other, to support each other, to problem
solve with each other, to set life goals and objectives with each other. Much of the depression, the despair, the
frustration we experience in life, we experience because we feel we don’t have
the time, or the energy to stop the treadmill, step off for rest and
refreshment, choosing instead, to push ourselves to the point where our hearts
are pretty much dead, and we’re living on auto-pilot. We live without passion, without love, without feeling, all of
which lead to, depression, despair, frustration. And then, we hear Jesus’ words, and they sound almost too good to
be true! For those of us striving to
keep our jobs, or beating the bushes to find a job; for those of us who are expending what little energy we have
trying to keep our marriages and our families together; for those of us who are struggling with
feelings of shame and unworthiness that drain us of our life-force, Jesus’
words sound alluring, and intriguing, and cause us to hope, beyond hope, that
in Him, we might find rest, blessed rest from our weariness. But, is it too good to be true? Is Jesus’ offer of rest, and gentleness and
humility—is it for real? Or is it just
like so many other offers today—unrealistic advertising that doesn’t
deliver?
Well, Jesus does
deliver—and there’s no catch. He means
what he says when he calls us to come to him, and learn from him, and find rest
for our souls. But, he also means what
he says when he calls us to take His yoke upon us, for His yoke is easy, and
His burden is light. Odd, isn’t it,
that Jesus offers first, rest, and then he talks about taking up a yoke. Let’s consider, for a minute, this yoke that
Jesus is talking about. Now, to most
Lutherans, a “yoke” is a funny story told by Lutherans of Swedish decent in
Lake Wobegon. But to people in Jesus’
time, it was a very real device placed on oxen so that you could hitch your
plow and prepare your fields for planting.
To Jesus, who was trained as a carpenter, a yoke would have been one of
the more common and frequent things He would’ve fashioned in his workshop. In
Judah, ox-yokes were made by bringing the ox to the carpenter, who would begin
by taking appropriate measurements. The
carpenter then roughed out a yoke of the correct size, and the ox was brought
back for a “fitting”. The carpenter
then carefully shaped and adjusted the yoke so that it would fit well, and not
rub on the neck of the beast, or irritate, or gauge the shoulders. Because when a yoke was made properly, an ox
would yield to it, and accept it willingly.
When a yoke was ill-fitting, the ox would hurt, and would pull from it
and try to shy away from it. In other
words, a yoke that was “easy” was a yoke that was custom-made, and
well-fitting. And that’s what Jesus is
saying to you and me in this passage.
He’s saying that we find rest, and peace in Him, when we take His yoke
upon us, and submit to it. He’s saying
that in life, we will find calm and comfort, when we stop trying to pull away
from Him, and stop trying to turn away from Him, and submit to His Lordship and
His care. Because then, we will trust
in Him. Because then, we will place our
hearts, our lives, our busy-ness, our cares, in His hands, and find rest and
peace. To take His yoke upon us, is to
submit to His yoke; to surrender to His
will; to place ourselves, and all that
we are, into His care. And then, comes
rest. Then He will teach us how to be
at peace, and to have strength and courage, even when we’re carrying a heavy
burden. Then, we will find that indeed,
His yoke is easy, and our burden light.
Do you still find this hard to believe?
Does it still sound too good to be true?
As I implied last Sunday,
there were certain things about Susan’s recent surgery and hospitalization that
allowed us to experience, once again, the reality of God’s grace and the
presence and, yes, peace of Jesus Christ.
When we went into the hospital, we’d planned on her surgery being
outpatient, but had prepared ourselves for the possibility that she just might
have to be in overnight. Little did we
realize that the surgery would last over four hours, would be much more
involved than we’d imagined, would mean almost a week in the hospital, and
would throw us into the fear and uncertainty of major surgery. Minute by minute and hour by hour we sat in
that hospital room burdened, to begin with,
by all that goes with surgery—and hospitalization—the fear of infection,
trying to keep the lungs clear of fluid, the difficulty of seeing a loved one
hurting. But piled on top of that, were
the rest of life’s burdens that we all carry with us every day—things that have
to get covered at work, bills to be paid, her car was in the shop, and on and
on. Anyone who’s lived, knows what it’s
like—that it is, a burden. That it is a
heavy burden, and you go to bed at night, weary—the person in the hospital is
weary, and the family is weary. And
there’s really little you can do. Oh,
you can be there—you can carry on—you can support and encourage. But basically, you drag yourself along, day
by day. And there’s no better words to
describe it than, burdened, weary. And
Susan and I drew strength from praying Compline, Prayer at the Close of the
Day, by her hospital bed, each night before we parted. And one of the verses in Compline that we
read each night, was this, Come to me, all you that are weary and are
carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. And then we would part, and rest in peace. And, it was peace. We did rest, because we surrendered. We submitted our wills, and our lives, and our situation, to
Him. We gave up control, and wanting to
have things our way, and turned all healing to Him, who is the Great
Physician. Doesn’t mean we didn’t do
what we needed to do. Doesn’t mean we
were passive, or unconcerned. It does
mean, we surrendered and submitted. And
when we release, when we let go, His peace comes over us, and we find
rest. The heavy burden is not so
heavy. The cares are not so
unbearable. The weariness is not so,
dark. Learning from Jesus, how to be
gentle and humble of heart, we find rest for our souls. True rest.
True peace. Strength to carry
on. Courage to continue. Because that’s what faith is. Martin Luther said faith is simply trusting
God to be God—so that you don’t have to.
Faith is yielding our lives, and our illness, and our troubles, and our
weariness, to God. Because trying to be
God, is a heavy burden. Trying to be
God, is overwhelming. Which is why,
when we trust God, to be God, we can truly find peace for our souls—because
then, all we have to be responsible for, is the yoke that Jesus gives us. The yoke, that is easy and light.
Maybe at this particular
time in your life, you are feeling weary.
Maybe this morning, you woke up tired, and had to drag yourself to
church. Maybe you’re carrying a heavy
burden. Maybe you’re caught up trying
to be God, holding yourself, your family, your company, the world, on your
shoulders. Maybe you have real
concerns, about your job, or your unemployment, your illness, your marriage, your future, your health and
well-being. And you need, rest for your
soul. You need, peace in your heart and
in your life. If this is you, today,
then join me in now, in a prayer of submission—a prayer of surrender to God, a
prayer that will bring rest, and peace.
Let us pray.
God of the universe, and
God of our hearts and lives, your Son, our Savior Jesus knows what it is to be
weary, and to carry a heavy burden, as He wearied himself for us, as He bore
the cross, for our salvation. Now, He
bids us come to Him, and find rest for our souls, which will bring peace to our
lives. So, now, in this moment, we
surrender ourselves to you. We
acknowledge you to be our God, and turn over to you, all that is not in our
power to control. We trust you to be
our God, and to care for us, and to do for us, what you see that we need. And as we trust you, we release to you, our
burdensome worries and cares, our
troubles and strains and stresses. And
now, we open ourselves to you, to your healing power, to your Lordship over our
lives. We open ourselves, so that we
may receive, from you, strength, courage, healing, and…rest. True rest and true peace, in Jesus, our Lord
and Savior. Amen.